


The Forget Me Not Job

by crayonbreakygal



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-06-04 13:25:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 28
Words: 23,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6659842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayonbreakygal/pseuds/crayonbreakygal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate's gone, their memories are all jumbled.  What happened in the last week? Takes place somewhere during season four.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Remembering

**Author's Note:**

> This is a multi-chapter fic! My first one for Leverage. Just a warning though; I wanted to make sure that everyone knew that there might be triggers in this fic. There's some serious stuff going on in my 'verse, but I've tried not to damage them too much. I swear I'll fix them before the end though. Enjoy!

The Forget Me Not Job

Chapter One--Remembering

Eliot’s body ached like he’d been in an explosion.  Definitely not remembering an explosion.  He remembered sitting at the table, watching Hardison run the info on the latest con.  He remembered Parker laughing inappropriately, Sophie smiling, Nate wincing. 

Opening his eyes, he wondered why he was lying on an unfamiliar bed.  It was almost dark outside with little light coming into the room.  As he rolled over to wedge himself up, he noticed another body on the bed with him.  Whoever it was felt warm and definitely female.  By the smell of her, yes, women have a distinctive smell, he knew that it was Sophie.

“Sophie, wake up.  Sophie, come on.”

“No, no, stop,” she yelled, bringing footsteps toward the room.

Eliot looked around for some kind of weapon, but there was none.  Putting himself between the door and Sophie was his only choice.  His ribs screamed at him as he attempted to get up off the bed.  The door was quickly opened, followed by a large figure blocking out the light.

“Soph?”

It was Hardison.  Thank god it was Hardison.

“Hardison, what the hell?”

His breathing was labored, probably because the ribs were bruised and possibly cracked, if not broken.  His hand hurt like hell and one of his legs felt like it had almost been wrenched out of its socket.

“You’re awake?”

“Where are we?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Where’s Parker? Where’s Nate?”

“Parker’s in there,” Hardison answered, pointing to the room he had come from.  “I don’t know where Nate is. I’ve searched all over, Eliot.”

Hardison’s voice caught on Nate’s name.  Something was entirely wrong with this, Eliot thought. 

Sophie gasped in her sleep as she lay on the bed.  She must be dreaming, but Eliot needed her awake and helping.

As he started to shake her, she attempted to slug him.  There wasn’t much power behind the punch though, and he was able to gently put the arm back down on the bed.

She was still in whatever dream she was having when she started screaming.  “Nate, no, stop.”

Now Eliot knew he had to wake her up.  Shaking her, she finally opened her eyes.

“Eliot?”

Her eyes were rimmed in red, face clear of makeup, no jewelry.  She started to shake as he held her.

Parker joined the group, but Eliot could tell that something was really wrong with the thief just by her stance.

“We have to find Nate.  He’s not here.”

She said it with no inflection in her voice.  He couldn’t see her eyes, but he imagined there wasn’t much spark in them.

“Alec?”

“I, um, I don’t know.  We looked.”

“He’s not here.  We looked.  He’s not on the beach. Please don’t tell me we’ll find him. Please don’t tell me we’ll find him.”

The now dead-like look that Parker had turned to anguish.  Hardison did not know how to handle whatever was going on with her. 

“OK, remember what I said.  We didn’t find him.  He’s gotta be OK.”

“OK?” Sophie managed to finally get out, letting go of Eliot as she did.  “Where’s Nate?”

“I don’t know.”

So no one knew exactly where they were, why they were there, Nate was missing and Parker was acting really, really strange.

“What day is it?”

“No idea.  Phones, the ones we had on us are dead.  Water logged.  There’s no tech here.  No phone. Electricity, but no phone.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Sophie announced.

“Bathroom,” Eliot yelled at Hardison.

“That door,” Hardison pointed, holding Parker back so Eliot could help Sophie.

“She’s not sick, right?  Because Nate said she’s not supposed to get sick.”

Eliot started to touch Parker, to see if he could calm her down, but she ran from him, sitting on the couch that was in the outer room.  She rocked back and forth chanting that they wouldn’t find Nate on the beach.

“Hardison, what the hell is wrong with her?”

“I don’t know, man,” he answered, crying in the process.  “She won’t let me touch her.  I can’t tell if she’s injured or not.”

“I’ll do it,” Sophie said as she came out of the bathroom.

Sophie looked pale, too pale in Eliot’s mind.

“Let’s go outside.  I need to get the lay of the land, Hardison.  And figure out where the hell we are.”

“You won’t find him. He’s not on the beach.  Please don’t find him,” Parker cried out.  “He’s angry.”

“Nate’s angry?”  Parker chose to ignore Eliot’s question as Sophie sat down beside her.

Eliot looked out all the windows, checking for possible dangers. Inching the door open, he waved Hardison through.

They were on a beach.  The house was secluded, but Eliot could hear the waves crashing down not far away.

The waves crashing, a boat.  The memory floated away as he closed his eyes.  It was almost like it had been washed away with the ocean water.

“Tell me what you know.”

“All I remember is we somehow washed up on the beach.  Both you and Sophie were lights out, so Parker and I managed to get you to that cottage.  I have no idea where we are, why we are here.  There’s not a soul around, Eliot.  The water’s cold, which means we are still somewhere in the Northeast.  And if we’re this isolated, maybe Maine?  Not Massachusetts, but who knows.”

“Show me, where you woke up.”

Hardison and Eliot made their way over the dunes and down to the beach.  It was almost dark, but Eliot could still see enough to do a quick search.

“Could Nate have washed up somewhere else?”

“Somewhere else?  Possibly.  Since I don’t know why we’re here, I don’t know.”

Eliot walked around for a bit, but didn’t find anything at all that would give him a clue.  Thank god, no body either.

“It’s getting too dark out here to see.  Let’s regroup and figure out how to find civilization in the morning.”

“We searched for hours, Eliot.  Hours.  Parker would not leave. I had to drag her back.  She was frantic, and no, not like she gets when she has too much sugar.  Something happened to her, something bad.  I can feel it.  She kept screaming Nate until she couldn’t scream anymore.  For hours, Eliot.  She searched for hours screaming his name.”

Where the hell was he, Eliot pondered?  He just wouldn’t take off on his own?  Why didn’t they remember what happened?

“You don’t remember what happened, do you Hardison?”

“Unfortunately, no.  And neither do you.”

 


	2. The Boat

Chapter Two—The Boat

Sophie’s head hurt something fierce.  It was probably a concussion judging by the nausea and headache she now sported.  There were contusions up and down her arms. She couldn’t remember being in a fight. Maybe Eliot would know.

As she closed her eyes, she saw Nate yelling at her.  A boat was rocking, he was yelling, Parker looked confused and shaken.  Then the image disappeared.

Parker was curled up in a ball on the old, ratty sofa, not moving.  She obviously did not want to be touched, but Sophie needed her cooperation to make sure there were no physical injuries.  There were definitely mental injuries, but she did not have the time or the patience to deal with that at the moment.

“Parker, sweetie, are you hurt?”

Parker slowly shook her head no.  “Nate said it was going to be OK.”

She kept talking about Nate like she knew what happened to him.

“What happened, Parker?  We need to know.”

Parker kept shaking her head no.  That could indicate that Parker didn’t want to tell her or that she didn’t know.

“I don’t know,” she cried out.  “Please tell me that Nate isn’t on the beach?”

“Why would he be on the beach?  Sweetie, Eliot and Hardison will find him if he is.”

“No,” she growled out.  “He’ll be dead.  Please don’t find him.”

A gunshot rang out in Sophie’s ears, startling her.  She knew it wasn’t real at that moment, but it had happened.  Her hearing was off, she realized when she woke up, like something had gone off, something loud right next to one of her ears.

“Parker, he’s not dead.  At least we don’t think he is.” He better not be, Sophie begged.  Please don’t be dead, Nate.  She didn’t think she could handle that.

Reaching out her hand, Sophie touched Parker’s hair.  The girl flinched but then relaxed a bit as Sophie stroked it, just to get her used to someone touching.

“Parker, would you tell me if you were hurt?”

She shook her head yes, but did not move.  Getting up, Sophie explored the room, rummaging through the sparse kitchen.  Luckily she found some canned goods in one of the cabinets, so they wouldn’t starve. 

“It’s getting dark.  We should eat something.  Keep our strength up.”

“He’s out there, all alone.”

It was like a stab to the gut when Parker said it.  Yes, Nate could be out there all alone.  Where was he, dammit?

Eliot and Hardison came back a few minutes later, with Eliot shaking his head no.

“Please don’t tell me you found Nate on the beach?”

Eliot looked distressed at Parker’s comment, but quickly changed his facial expressions and walked over to the sofa.

“No.  It’s OK.  He’s not out there, Parker.  We’ll find him.”

Parker curled out of the tight ball she was in and hugged Eliot. While she wouldn’t let Hardison and Sophie touch her, she let Eliot soothe whatever was going on in her mind.

“Parker, it’s gonna be OK,” Eliot said as he held her tight.

“Please don’t find Nate on the beach.”

 


	3. Off the Grid

Chapter Three—Off the Grid

No tech, no phone, no computer, no anything.  Hardison glanced at Sophie as they opened cans of food to eat.  None of them looked appetizing, but he didn’t care.  Being a little sick to his stomach, he knew he needed to eat if he was going to make it to the next day, much less the next hour, next minute.

Eliot hadn’t moved from the spot on the couch where Parker had literally crawled into his lap.  Eliot looked uncomfortable, but wouldn’t have moved her off for anything.  Sophie groaned beside him, head held down.

“You need to sit down,” he told Sophie as he led her to the chair beside the sofa.  There wasn’t much other furniture besides the two places to sit and the bed in the other room.  It was probably some kind of vacation spot or fishing shack.  It was drab and dreary though, so why would anyone want to spend their free time in this hell hole.

“Hardison, did you look in the bathroom, any kind of medicine at all?”

Eliot was right. Sophie needed something for her head.

“Ten years out of date.  I didn’t think it was safe.”

Eliot sighed in frustration.

“No, probably not.  Let’s get some food in everyone.  It’ll help.”

Hardison took over cooking duties, if just to warm up whatever they had found.  Green beans, peas, carrots, everything had a drab, bland color that almost made him vomit.  He couldn’t.  The others were worse off than he was.

“Why are we here, right now, in this place?” Sophie voiced, sitting up from where she had collapsed earlier.

“There wasn’t any kind of landmarks I could recognize, although Hardison doesn’t think we’re in Massachusetts.”

“Just a guess.  More population means more people at the beaches.  I didn’t even see a light much less people.”

“Please don’t find Nate on the beach,” Parker whispered as she buried her head in Eliot’s chest.

“Just stop saying that, Parker.  Please stop,” Sophie begged as she held her head.  “He’s not on the beach. He was on the boat.”

“Boat?” Eliot questioned.

“What boat?” Hardison asked at the same time.

“There was a boat.  He was yelling something. A gun went off, too close to my head.  That’s all I remember.”

Hardison looked at Eliot, asking silently if he remembered any of that.

“Nothing, man.  I got nothing.”

“Sophie, you need to eat.  Then I wanna try something.  You up for it?” Eliot asked the grifter.

“I’ll try.  It’s all jumbled in my brain.  If my head didn’t hurt so much.”

Hardison served them whatever he had found on mismatched plates and bowls.  Parker didn’t care because she wolfed her food down in record time.

“So hungry.  I haven’t eaten in three days.”

“What?”

“Parker, what?”

“Oh damn,” Hardison added.

“It’s just, I’m hungry.  Just hungry.”

“Just eat,” Sophie urged her, able to touch her hand as she told her to eat.

“Yeah,” Parker answered as she went back to eating what was left.

 


	4. He Can't Fix This

Chapter Four—He Can’t Fix This

Parker wouldn’t leave the room after the food, but Eliot had no choice but to examine Sophie with her attached to him at the hip, almost literally.  He urged her to sit down on the sofa as he prodded and probed Sophie for injuries.  She was less shaky after eating.  That was a good sign.  Her skin had bruises up and down her body.  Some of them looked to have been obtained in some kind of explosion.  Some of them not.  She’d been hit by something or someone not more than three days prior. 

“Do you remember anyone hitting you?” he asked softly.

“No, I don’t.”

“Thank god you’re Ok,” Nate’s anguished face appeared before her.

“He asked me if I was OK,” Sophie cried out.

“Nate?”

She shook her head yes.

“Let me start from the beginning.  Some of the bruises on you look like they’re pretty recent, like in the last twenty four hours. From an explosion maybe?”

Sophie shook her head no, like she didn’t remember that.

“There are others, older ones, possibly three, maybe four days old? Not many, but I can tell. Someone punched you really hard.”

Sophie could see Nate’s angry face, hovering over her.

Eliot flinched a little.  The mastermind would get angry at times, but would never lay a hand on Sophie.

“He, he didn’t do,” Eliot started but could not finish.

“I don’t know.  I don’t think so. I wish I could remember.”

“Nate’s angry,” Parker said from the sofa.

A tear escaped from Sophie’s big eyes, almost bringing Eliot to his knees.

“There was a boat, Nate was yelling something.  I just remember a gun going off right by my head.  Why can’t I remember more?”

Eliot checked around her ears, trying to find something, but if she washed up on shore like Hardison said, there would be no evidence left to find.

“You remember more than we do,” he pointed out as he held Sophie’s hand.

“Maybe I can remember more, if you do something to help me remember. I have to remember what happened.  What happened to Nate, Eliot?”

“Please don’t find Nate on the beach,” Parker said yet again.

Sophie closed her eyes, more tears spilling out on her cheeks.

“He’s not there, Parker.  He’s not there.”

Parker seemed to take Hardison’s word for it at the moment, settling down again.

“This thing have a hot water heater, anything to warm up water?” Eliot asked the hacker.

“Let me look.  Maybe the pilot light is still lit?”

“Itchy,” Sophie told him, not letting go of his hand.

“Salt water,” he replied.  “Parker, no.”

She was going to say it again, but for Sophie’s sake, she needed to not.  Parker grimaced, like she was in pain for not saying it.

“Please tell me not to,” Parker came out with as she hugged her legs.

“Not to what?” Sophie asked as she started to rise.

“Help me.”

“Parker, what happened? What happened on that boat?” Sophie’s voice rose in timber as her body rose from the chair.

Parker just shook her head no.  “No.”

“Sophie, let’s take this slow,” Eliot warned the woman.

“Where is he, Parker?  Where is he?”

Eliot needed to calm the situation down before both Sophie and Parker were damaged even more.

“Please don’t find Nate on the beach.”

Parker was crying in earnest now, rocking back and forth while she hugged her legs.

“No, no, no, no. Don’t touch me,” Parker yelled as Hardison attempted to comfort her.

“Parker, he was there, on a boat.  Were you there, Parker?  Were you there?”

Eliot did not approve of Sophie’s methods, but Parker was telling them a little more.

“Sophie, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Hardison warned her as he walked over to her.

“Tell us what happened. Please, tell us what happened?  Why were we on a boat?”

“Enough, Sophie.  Stop,” Hardison urged her, trying to move her back into the bedroom.

“Was it you who fired the gun?  Why was he there? To save you?”

All of them stopped.  Parker quieted, looking at Sophie with dead eyes.  Eliot didn’t think that either woman would recover from whatever they had experienced.  He’d seen it before so many times in his travels.

“He can’t fix this,” Parker said.

Sophie collapsed in his arms, strength pouring out of her after the confrontation.

 


	5. Connections

Chapter Five--Connections

It was early the next morning when Sophie awoke to light coming through the window of the bedroom.  Her head didn’t hurt as much as the day before, but was still throbbing at the base of her neck. Concussion be damned, there wasn’t much she could do other than wait it out.

Another figure lay on the bed with her, probably Hardison by the large shape and the fact that his hand held onto her arm like an anchor or to make sure she stayed where she was.  She never realized how large his hands were. The contrast could be a bit funny, but not at the moment.  As she rolled over to face him, his grip tightened up just a bit.

Her mouth felt like it was filled with cotton, her tongue slightly swollen.  Sophie figured that she was slightly dehydrated, having not drank much liquids at all the day before.  The fact that she had emptied her stomach too because of the head trauma made her feel even worse.  At least she kept the food that she had managed to choke down last night.

Slowly sitting up, Hardison’s grip moved a bit, but he did not let go.

“Where are you going?”

Was he her bodyguard or warden?

“Bathroom.”

He released her as soon as he realized what that meant.

“What I wouldn’t do for some toothpaste.”

“If there was some in there, it’d be ten years old.”

She didn’t care right then.  It didn’t matter.  Her mouth tasted horrible, her legs were wobbly and she needed a shower in the worst way.  Her skin crawled because of the salt water not being washed off.

Pushing the door shut, she did manage to find a small tube of toothpaste in the cabinet.  She did not care if it was old, but she hoped that it couldn’t give her food poisoning or whatever could happen.  At that point, she didn’t care.  Turning on the tap, she noticed that it seemed warm, so maybe Hardison did have luck in turning on the hot water heater.  Only she didn’t have any clothes to change into afterward.

There were two threadbare towels available, one slightly damp.  As Hardison’s skin didn’t feel weird to the touch, he probably had already cleaned up.  Sophie rinsed out her shirt and wrung it out while the shower ran.  She hoped that the heater was big enough for her to take a shower longer than five minutes.  There was a sliver of soap in the soap dish and a small bottle of shampoo on the side.

The heat felt glorious as she rinsed the salt and sweat from the previous day.  As she looked down, she saw the bruises that Eliot was talking about.  At least four or five on her legs, one on her stomach and several on her arms.  She had no idea how she got them other than some of them hurt a bit to touch and some of them just looked uglier than they felt.  Nate’s angry face swam before her eyes and almost made her fall in the tub.

Happy thoughts, she chanted in her mind, bringing back pictures of times past; Nate smiling at her, Parker being giddy at jumping down an elevator shaft, Eliot cooking for them, Hardison playing with his games. Concentrating on Nate’s smile, she reminisced about the last time she could remember that they spent together just being with each other.  His hand snaked into hers, holding on tight. He wasn’t one to show his affection in public, but there were displays sometimes that melted her heart.

Was this a relationship, she thought?  He wouldn’t call it that.  They spent almost every waking moment of free time together.  Not sure what else they could call it.

There was electricity in the house, but obviously not any heat because Sophie felt the chill as soon as she turned off the water.  She was clean.  That made her happier than she had been in the last day.  Wrapping the towel around her, she entered the other room trying to not wake up Hardison.  As she rummaged through the lone dresser, she discovered a few items of clothes, mostly t-shirts.  Anything would do until her shirt was dry.

Turning back, she felt Hardison’s eyes on her.

“Feel better?” he croaked out, sounding like he needed something to drink also.

“Yes.  Immensely.  Do you need…”

“Did that last night.  I guess that’s why I slept like a rock.  Also, I don’t think I’ve slept much in the last 72 hours, so it’s all good.”

“So you remember something?”

She held out hope that she wasn’t the only one with memories.

“Nothing else.  Not like I ain’t used to not sleeping.”

Since he was always doing the background for any con, he didn’t have the regular sleep hours the rest of the team had.

“I’ll be done shortly.”

“Take your time.  Eliot couldn’t get Parker in there last night.  Maybe you can convince her.”

If Parker let her touch, maybe she could.  She didn’t think that Eliot would even go there, much less help Parker get clean.

Sophie dressed quickly, trying to comb out her unruly hair with her fingers.

Light was beginning to filter into the small house as she entered the living area.  It was early, yes, but Sophie felt she couldn’t sleep another wink. Her mind was in turmoil over what had happened.  It would take time for her brain to heal from the concussion, but she knew she didn’t have time to dwell on it.  She needed action, not sympathy.

Parker was curled up on the couch with Eliot half laying, half sitting with her head in his lap.  It couldn’t be comfortable, but Sophie theorized he probably had slept standing up at some point in his life, so this was probably nothing to him.  Parker’s much smaller hand held his tight, almost like Hardison’s hand held her arm.  Their links to each other were sometimes so incredible it took her breath away.  At times she could read each of them like a book with just one look.  She wanted that back. Her nonverbal communication with the three was almost as good as it was with Nate, and he had more than a decade reading her signals.  Right then, she couldn’t even tell what she thought about anything, much less her relationship to each one of them.

As quietly as she could, she rummaged around and finally found something she desperately needed:  coffee. It was instant, probably old and out of date.  She didn’t care.  It was caffeine.  Putting water on to boil, she scooped a bit into a cup.

Nate looked up from his papers, raised his cup in salute to her, smiled and took a sip.  The image made her heart hurt a bit.  That’s exactly what he looked like not long before.  She was not ready for the images, so she pushed them back, hoping they wouldn’t surface until she had food and her bearings a bit later.

“Where’s Parker?” Nate said as the image before her told her that Nate was concerned, if a bit edgy.

“Archie’s dead,” someone whispered in her ear.

Where had that come from?  The cup shook in her hands, so she quickly placed it on the counter.

“Sophie, go,” Nate yelled, background the boat in her other dreams.

The gun went off by her ear, stunning her.  The ringing was there, she noticed.  She’d had guns go off near her before, but never one this close.  What did the gun mean?  Who had it in their hands?

She could just make out something in her line of vision as she examined the gun shooter.  It was a woman, it had to be.

“Please don’t find Nate on the beach,” Parker said, not two feet from her.

The cup crashed to ground after she hit it, making Sophie crumble.   As she grabbed her head at the sounds bombarding her, she looked up at Parker’s face.  Tears streamed down, dropping onto the ground at her feet.

“Whoa,” Hardison said behind Parker, reaching around and turning off the tea kettle.

Sophie held her head in her hands and sobbed.  She couldn’t take much more of the visions that were swimming around in her head.  It was all so disjointed, it didn’t make sense.  And the fact that she thought that Parker had some sort of psychotic break which she could do nothing for.

“Sophie?” Eliot asked as he bent down to her level.

“Just make it stop,” she asked Eliot as he took her hand.

Hardison tried to lead Parker back to the sofa, but she flinched at his touch.

“Nate, he said no,” she announced as she walked, almost zombie-like back to the sofa.

“Sophie, no,” he yelled again.  The gun went off again.  This time, it hit something.

Eliot was right there, close to her if she needed.

“Eliot?  No, no,” she shouted as she realized what might have happened.  “No.”

Pushing him out of the way, she darted for the front door, flinging it open.  As she raced for the beach, she hoped against hope that she wouldn’t find Nate, dead from a gunshot wound. That’s what she had seen.  The bullet hit him with such force, he flew over the railing and into the water. 

She didn’t care that she had no shoes on or coat.  The wind whipped her damp hair as she raced around, looking for any sign of what happened.

“Sophie, wait,” Eliot called out to her.

There was nothing there other than rocks and shells and sand.


	6. If Things Could Get Worse

Chapter Six—If Things Could Get Worse

Getting Parker to sleep had been a challenge until she settled down on his lap. It was awkward, that was for sure, but at least he’d be able to tell if she tried to leave in the middle of the night.  He’d slept in worse positions, in worse climates than what he was encountering now.

Parker was warm and smelled of the sea since he couldn’t convince her to get herself clean.  Hardison had cleaned up late that night, but there was no way she was letting him out of her sight.  Why had Parker attached herself to him?  She gave no clue as to why.  Hardison looked heartbroken that Parker would not let him touch her. There was nothing he could do about that at the moment.

It was possible that Parker felt safe with him, because he was the protector of the group.  Well, he and Nate were the protectors, it’s just that Nate rarely used his fists unlike Eliot.

Where had that thought come from?  Eliot had always thought of himself as the one who took the punches, the one who got them out when things got hairy. 

“I’m counting on you to get her out,” Eliot had heard Nate say more times than he wished.

Only that phrase was in his mind, permanently etched.

“What did they do to her?” Sophie’s voice cried in the distance.

A cup shattered on the floor, jolting him awake.  Sophie collapsing on the ground had him moving quickly.  Parker stood over the grifter, tears streaming down her face.  Hardison ran out of the bedroom, clothes pulled every which way, probably from being dead asleep from not getting much for the last few days.

Hardison had been awake for days? Where had that come from? Eliot didn’t have time to explore what that meant with Sophie on the floor, obviously in need of something.  As she bolted outside in bare feet, Eliot trailed after her, to keep her safe.

She screamed no several times as she raced to the beach, looking for something.

“He’s not here,” she shouted as she fell to the ground on her knees.

The wind was whipping her dark hair all around her, like she was a sea nymph just back from a swim in the sea.  Her large t-shirt draped down across her thighs, covering up her curves.  It didn’t look like his Sophie, all sophistication and class.

Coming down to her level, he took her arms in his hands.

“Who’s not here? What did you see?”

“Parker shot Nate.”

Eliot couldn’t believe what she was saying. There was no way that Parker would shoot Nate.  No way.

“I saw a gun. It went off right by my head.  A woman was shooting it.  Nate, the impact from the bullet.  He went overboard.  It was Parker.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, I’m not sure.”

Eliot wanted to see her face as she said it.  There was no way Parker would willingly shoot Nate.

“The images are all so jumbled.  She was holding the gun though.  It did fire.  He fell, Eliot.  I watched as he fell.  Is that why she keeps asking about finding him on the beach?”

Eliot pulled Sophie to him as she cried, tears unstopped by him. 

 


	7. First Things First

Chapter Seven—First Things First

“We need to get out of here,” Eliot told the group once he was able to convince Sophie to come back to the cottage.

“You think that’s such a great idea with Parker not feeling well,” Hardison supplied, pointing to the woman on the sofa.

“We gotta chance it.  Maybe a change of scenery.  And we have to find out what’s going on.  With no tech, there’s no way we can control this.  Besides, I think both Sophie and Parker need to be seen by a doctor.”

“Rubbish,” Sophie claimed as she sat down in the chair, still shaking from running on the beach.

“In addition to all those bruises you have sweetheart, you cut your feet up running away from us.”

Sophie pushed them under her legs to hide what had happened.

“Your head any better?” Hardison snapped back at her.

She stared him down until he turned his head and looked away.

“If you do have a concussion…” Eliot warned her.

“They cannot do a damn thing about it. I am not going to sit around while there’s a possibility that Nate.”

Sophie couldn’t say it, and neither could Hardison.  If something had happened to him, then they needed to find out as much information as possible.

“How much cash do you have?” Eliot asked him.

“About 200.  I don’t think we should use any kind of credit until we see if all our aliases are blown.”

“I have around 200 also.  They obviously have nothing on them.”

“Parker’s boot.”

Both men looked at Sophie like she’d grown another head.  “Parker’s boot.  She has a secret stash in the heel.”

Hardison waved to Eliot that he should be the one to ask.  It hurt Hardison more than he could admit that Parker wasn’t clinging to him. 

“Hey, Parker.  Sophie wants to help you get cleaned up.  You’ll feel better if you do.”  He talked to her like she was a small child, fragile and scared of her own shadow.

“I’m itchy,” she said, making Hardison sigh in relief.  It was the first thing she’d said that wasn’t creepy and sad in the last day.

“Will you let her help?”

“Yeah,” she quietly told Eliot, taking his hand in hers.

The contrast was amazing.  Eliot’s large, meaty hands with her small, thin ones in his like he would almost swallow her whole.  But right now, watching how gentle the hitter was being with her, he almost started to cry again.  She couldn’t be like this forever, now could she?

Sophie took the hand that was offered and moved in the bedroom.  Eliot then gestured for them to go outside so they could talk.

“Sophie thinks that Archie is dead.”

“What?  How?”

“I don’t know.  It’s all jumbled.  Something seems to be clicking though.  She also thinks, and don’t fly off the handle, that Parker shot Nate.”

“No.  She couldn’t do that.  You know that.”

Eliot pulled him further from the cottage just to make sure that Parker or Sophie didn’t hear them.

“No, you don’t know that.  We don’t know her past.  We do know that her father died a mysterious death.  Her brother died in an accident.  I don’t even want to know about her mother.  She was in foster care, juvenile hall. There are just so many variables.”

Hardison knew that Eliot was right. Parker had a tough childhood. 

“Her go to response when someone hurts someone else is can we shoot them.”

“But this is Nate. It’s just there’s no way on earth she’d do that.  That concussion is scrambling Sophie’s brain.”

“Hence the doctor to check them both out.  If Sophie is suffering from a concussion, she’d be confused.  Parker is not. Something really bad has happened to her.  If Archie was killed, maybe she saw it?”

“That would not explain why she keeps repeating that phrase about Nate.  None of this makes sense, man.  We gotta be careful though.  Since we don’t remember, and I know that I didn’t hit my head, then something definitely is hinky.”

“That means we contact no one unless we know it’s safe.”

“First things first.  Transportation.”

“I’ll be back.  Keep an eye on them and don’t let them go anywhere. Tackle them if you have to.”

 


	8. Parker Needs Help

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of the chapters that makes this rated M. Could be trigger warnings in this. Nothing graphic though.

Chapter Eight—Parker Needs Help

Sophie helped Parker into the bathroom, but the girl just stood there confused about what to do.

“Do you need help, Parker?”

“Water.”

“It’s there to get you clean. You’ll feel better, I promise.”

Parker shook her head yes and proceeded to take off her top.  There were bruises, not unlike what Sophie had, but these were different.  She’d been beaten.  Sophie had seen it before.  They were older than the ones she had suffered, tinged yellow and blue now, instead of the angry grey and black that Sophie sported.

“Here.  Let me turn on the shower.”

“Don’t leave,” Parker demanded.

“I won’t leave unless you want me to.”

Parker shook a little as the boots and pants came off.  Her back had a gash that hadn’t healed yet.  She’d been hit with something like a belt or rope.  Her wrists were an angry red, like she’d been tied up.  Sophie knew she had to hold it together for Parker’s sake. But then she hissed when she saw the bruises on Parker’s thighs.  Those weren’t from being hit.  Once Parker had gotten into the shower and closed the ratty curtain, Sophie quietly fell apart again.  This could explain what seemed like a psychotic break.  She’d been violated by someone. Sophie wasn’t sure how far it had gone, but she was sure by looking at those hand prints that something had happened.  There were hand prints on the poor girl’s legs.  Someone must have used a lot of force to cause those.

Splashing water on her face, Sophie calmed her breathing. She didn’t think falling apart yet again in front of Parker would solve anything.  Being strong was what mattered for her and for Parker.

After Parker had washed away the salt water, she stopped the water from flowing. Sophie handed her a towel and turned just to give Parker a bit of privacy.

“Parker, how are you feeling?”

“Sad.”

She turned when Parker said that.  The towel was draped around the girl’s thin frame, making her look years younger.

“Why are you sad, sweetie? What can I do?”

“Find Nate,” she replied roughly as she passed Sophie, opening the door.

Sophie didn’t know how much longer she could keep up with Parker.  From one minute to the next, Sophie didn’t know who she’d encounter, whether it was Sad Parker, to Psychotic Parker, to Paranoid Parker. It probably didn’t help that her head had not stopped hurting.

Parker pulled on one of the other t-shirts that she had found in the dresser.  It was even larger on Parker, hanging down past her thighs to the top of her knees.  With her old pants back on, Parker looked to be sixteen instead of her mid to late twenties.  How did Sophie not know how old Parker was?   Had anyone ever mentioned it? She knew that Parker was older than Hardison by at least a few years.

Following Parker out of the bedroom, she went about making them more food, opening cans and heating things up.  She didn’t actually taste anything again, just ate mechanically. 

“Where’s Eliot?” she whispered to Hardison while the two stood at the stove.

“Procuring us a ride. We need to get out of here and pronto. Maybe some distance will help.”

“Once we find out where we are, I think our first stop should be Boston. We need some serious help with this.”

“Sophie, there is a possibility that our cover is blown wide open.”

She hadn’t considered that.  Scattered memories, Nate missing, Parker even crazier. Yes, their cover could be dirt.


	9. Transportation

Chapter Nine--Transportation

Eliot indeed had procured them a ride, but it only seated three.  It was an old truck that no one would miss before they were hundreds of miles away.  Eliot had even left them a hundred in cash.  He’d get it back to whoever owned it, eventually.

Parker chose to curl up on the floorboard directly beneath Eliot, which meant that Hardison had to drive.  Sophie didn’t feel that she could even focus, much less attempt to drive a cantankerous truck.  After being on the road for three hours, Eliot called a food stop and bathroom break. 

The mini-market was sparse when it came to real food, but at that point, Sophie wasn’t choosy.  It wasn’t like it would go to her hips anytime soon.  What she didn’t want was something that would make her headache worse.  Eliot had grabbed the strongest pain killer he could get without a prescription or buying it on the street. 

Their money had to last for a while, until one of them could get their hands on an emergency stash.  Hardison had told them that their best bet would be to get to Parker’s warehouse.  It was the one piece of property that probably wasn’t on anyone’s radar.

“We need a computer.  I don’t care what kind, preferably a laptop.  Wifi access.  Gotta hack into the remotes at each location and see what we’re dealing with.”

Eliot had agreed.  They were legitimately able to buy a no name unit when they passed a big box store.  Eliot had gone in with the cash that was in Parker’s boot.  He had avoided the cameras as much as possible, pulling a hat he’d found in the truck down low so as to not be as detectable.  He knew how to do this, Sophie realized.  He was a professional.

Once they stopped at the mini-market, he’d use their wifi to check on things.  Sophie walked the store slowly, trying to figure out what Parker would eat. Sugar, chocolate, chips. Junk food.  She chose an assortment of snacks to hold them over in addition to grabbing Hardison a hot dog and Eliot a burrito.  As she paid for all their take, she noticed that the clerk had the news on passively behind him.

Something caught her eye on the newscast.  The reporter was at the scene of something being brought up out of the water. Divers were present she could tell in the distance.  Her hands started shaking.  Reaching over, she turned up the volume, making the clerk look at her funny.

“The police are not speculating at this moment what caused the explosion.  Several bodies have been recovered from the wreckage.  Two have been identified.  One of the victims was Archie Leach, an accountant from Boston.  It was said that the yacht that exploded belonged to him.”

Sophie dropped the bag of food that was in her hands.  Her ears started ringing, hands started shaking.

“Archie?” Parker said behind her.  She hadn’t realized that she had followed Sophie into the store.

“The other victim has been identified as Nathan Ford. No other identities have been determined at this time.”

“They’re lying,” Parker’s voice seemed to cut through the noise that was in her head.

Nate smiling at her, sitting at the bar, drink in hand.  Nate, hit by gunfire, flying over the railing of a boat. 

She turned to look at Parker.  There was no emotion, nothing that would indicate that Parker was angry or sad or anything. 

“It is not known at this time what caused the explosion.  The FBI and State Police are investigating.”

Sophie’s legs wouldn’t move.  Her vision greyed until she knew she’d pass out.  Her head pounded, making it difficult to keep upright.  All she saw as she sank to the ground was Parker’s face.  That creepy smile that Parker got when she was going to steal something or knew something the rest of them did not crossed her face.  Oh god, what were they going to do?

“Please don’t find Nate on the beach,” Parker said as Sophie felt herself falling.  “Because that’s not where he is.”


	10. The Threat

Chapter Ten—The Threat

It was dark, dank, wet and smelled awful.  Nowhere to sit other than a piece of concrete that wasn’t the floor.  Looking sideways at the room, one wondered what the room was before.  A cellar to a house?  A prison that time forgot?  Someone’s dungeon?

The blanket was threadbare, but at least provided something for warmth.  The shaking would not stop though.  It wasn’t exactly the cold, but the dampness sunk into the bones. 

His shoulder hurt.  It throbbed.  Sure, it had been stitched up.

Visions flickered in and out of his brain.

“Sophie, no.”  Sophie stood before him, on a boat.

“Oh god, Parker, what did they do to you?” Parker shook in fear.

“I’m counting on you to get her out,” he yelled to Eliot.

“Where’s Hardison?” he asked no one.

He was so cold.

“Archie’s dead.”

“We’re blown.”

“No, Nate. Stop.”

Parker had a gun.  It fired.

Anger surged through his veins.  “Don’t be angry, Nate,” Parker begged him.

“It’s going to be OK, Parker.”

If he could stop the images, he would.

“Thank god you’re Ok,” he’d said to Sophie.  She wasn’t Ok.  There were bruises all over her.  No, all over Parker.

“Sophie, go,” he yelled.

Parker aimed the gun his way, eyes blank. Only she turned, firing the other way.  The threat was behind her.

 


	11. The Alphabet

Chapter Eleven—The Alphabet

Hardison used the store’s wifi while Sophie bought some snacks.  Parker was hungry and his legs were cramped from her body taking up all the space beneath him.  She seemed comfortable, hugging him tightly at times.  Eliot wished there was something he could do for the thief.  If it was true, Archie was gone and she probably was a witness to it. Could that be why she was so messed up?

“Hacked into all our feeds.  There are Feds crawling around everywhere.  Damn.  They haven’t accessed shit.  I am good. I can wipe everything from here if you want?”

“Can you access everything from your backups just in case?”

“Yeah.  Not a problem. Gone in three, two, one.”

Eliot contemplated what Hardison was saying.  If they wiped everything from Hardison’s server, would they lose the information they needed?  What would link them back to anything in their offices?  The only thing that was apparent in that apartment was that Nate lived there.

“Nothing on the other feeds.  No, wait.  Shit. Sophie’s place.  Fed sitting across the street.  Seems that they are waiting for us to show up.”

“My place?”

“Yep.  Let’s look at Parker’s, shall we?”

Eliot didn’t see anything obvious when Hardison panned the cameras.  Everywhere else though, there was a presence of law enforcement.  The bar, Nate’s place, his place, Sophie’s, even Hardison’s.

“There’s more than just Feds on the case.  I swear those guys do not look like Feds.”

Eliot took a closer look.  “Interpol. Could be CIA, NSA.  Dammit.”

Hardison next checked on all their aliases.  He shook his head no.

“Blown.  Every single one of them.  Dammit.  It took me months, years.”

“We need some new identities now,” Eliot pointed out.

“On it.”

Hardison always did good work.  They’d need new IDs, credit cards, whatever else to move around.

“Maybe we should add on some plastic surgery too,” Hardison joked. “Checking anything out there to see if Nate has turned up.”

Hardison crossed his arms over his chest.  “No.”

Eliot could tell by his body language that something was definitely wrong.

“They found the boat,” he said as he looked directly into Eliot’s eyes.  “Four bodies, two identified.”

“Archie,” Eliot answered.

“Just no.  I am not going to believe.  It’s too quick.  They cannot identify a body that quickly.”

Eliot closed his eyes in realization.  “Visual identification.”

“The damn thing blew up.”

The hairs on the back of Eliot’s neck stood up. Hardison was right.  Two days?  Maybe three?  A body, in the water, identified that quickly?  DNA tested that quickly?  No law enforcement moved that quickly.  It usually took more days, weeks to do that kind of work.

“They’d have to get next of kin.”

“Maggie.”

“We need a burner phone.  What’s taking them so long in there?  Hardison, don’t tell them. We need visual confirmation, got it?”

Eliot wrenched the door open, walking quickly into the store.

“Please don’t find Nate on the beach,” Parker said as Sophie fell.  “Because that’s not where he is.”

Eliot was able to react quickly, saving Sophie from another hit to the head.  As he glanced up at Parker, he heard the voice off in the distance.  A boat, Archie’s face, Nate’s face.  So much for keeping it from them.

 


	12. Blown

Chapter Twelve--Blown

Sophie awoke on a soft bed, warm and quiet. Where had she ended up?  So all that she had experienced was a dream?  Opening her eyes slowly, she noticed white linen, white walls, something beeping, a line hooked up to her arm.  Hospital.

“Hey, Soph,” Eliot quietly said next to her.

“What happened?” she croaked out, throat so sore.

“I don’t know whether you passed out or slipped.”

“Passed out,” she said as tears started swimming in her eyes.

“They did an MRI while you were out.”

“Concussion,” she groggily answered.

“Concussion.  I told the doctor about your confusion, memory loss. She says it all fits.  I don’t have a concussion though.”

Sophie closed her eyes at Eliot’s proclamation.

“I know.”

“Neither does Hardison.  He did some checking.”

Sophie had a feeling what was coming next.

“We’re blown.  All the aliases.  The Feds have set up shop at Nate’s place.  Yours, Hardison’s, mine. The only one they haven’t found is Parker’s, we think.”

She attempted to sit up.

“How?  In here?”

Eliot smiled a little.  “Hardison is quick.  Set up new ones just as you decided to take your swan dive.”

“Thank goodness.  Where’s Parker?”

“Next room.  Hardison is watching over her.”

“Eliot, she saw. The news.  It can’t be,” Sophie said, tears forming again.

“You’re right about that.”  The look on his face was sheer anger. She’d never seen him like that, even when he had to take down a goon.

Huh, her brain said to her.  She was right about something?  She was hoping, hopeful in the back of her mind.  Wouldn’t she know if Nate were dead?  Their connection.

“So, he’s not?”

“Don’t you think it’d take more than an explosion to kill the bastard?”

“How?  What happened while I took this stupid nap?”

“Maggie.”

 


	13. Seriously, Man

Chapter Thirteen—Seriously, Man

Hardison was on it before Eliot had flung the door open to the truck.  He’d contact Maggie, by means that hopefully were not traceable and find out what she knew.  It didn’t take long. She picked up on the first ring.  Talking through a computer was a bit awkward, but there was no one around to hear but him.

“Maggie, can you talk?”

“Har…, yes, wait.  Sorry.”

“Take it easy. Sure that you’re hot.  Just tell me what’s going on?”

Hardison had to remain calm, he knew that.  If it was true, he’d break it to the rest of the crew.

“I, I, just. No.  That’s all I can say.”

“Where are you?”

“Jim.  He’s here.”

Shit, Hardison thought.  Sterling. 

“Let me talk to him.”

“What the fuck is going on?”  Not even a hello, how are you, is your boss dead.

“We’re blown.”

“Like I didn’t know that.  I’ve had FBI crawling up my ass all day.  What did your crew get involved in?”

“As you know, this is not a secure line.  We don’t want FBI crawling up our asses either.  Just calm down.”

“All I know is there’s four bodies at the morgue that they’re claiming to have identified.”

“So no visual.”

“No. I’m not letting Maggie anywhere near.”

“Listen, Sterling.  Go, take her and run.  This is, something really bad is going on.  Just take her and Olivia and disappear until this is over.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously, man.  Nate’s not dead though?”

“I don’t know that for sure.”

Hardison could tell that someone was attempting to key on where he was. His spidey senses were going off like gangbusters.

“Gotta cut the connection.  I’ll contact you, somehow.”

“Wait, you need help.”

“Jim, let me talk to him,” Hardison could hear in the background.

The connection was cut. Hardison was able to make sure whoever was on the other end couldn’t trace him.  They had to get out of there quickly.

“You think you can put a trace on me, you mofo.  Oh hell, no. You do not. I am going to send my worst.”

Hardison sent a virus as soon as the person on the other end thought he made Hardison.

“You going down.”

 


	14. Work the Problem

Chapter Fourteen—Work the Problem

Hardison watched over Parker.  She lay on the bed, looking lost.  She still didn’t want him to touch her.  What could he have done to elicit that response?  Nate would never make him into someone that did that to women.  He’d never agree to play that kind of person.

Parker moaned in her sleep occasionally, but stayed where she was.  Eliot had been able to obtain a burner phone, so they had that.  Hardison was linked into the hospital’s system, monitoring the security feeds while he worked the problem.  That’s what Parker would always say “Work the problem”.

“Hey,” Eliot said as he walked into the room.  Thank goodness he didn’t frighten the hacker.  Hardison didn’t know how much more he could take.

“Sleeping right now.  Sophie awake?”

“Yeah, finally.  She’s looking better though, with all the fluids they’ve given her.”

“I hate to say this, but I don’t think we should hang out here much longer.  My IDs are good.  I just don’t want to take the chance.”

“Sophie wants to ask the doctor about Parker.”

Hardison looked hard at Eliot.  “Ask?”

“She wouldn’t say.”

The doctor finally showed up doing her rounds. Eliot and Hardison pulled her aside near the door.

“I need for you to talk to the woman next door.  She has a request I want you to hear.”  The doctor shook her head and agreed.  “I’ll stay, Alec.  Just go with her.”

“Hi, I’m Dr. Neal.  The gentleman next door said you needed something?”

Sophie sighed and struggled to sit up.  “The woman next door, she’s my half-sister.  There’s something wrong with her that we have not been able to figure out.  See, we were attacked.  We need to find out if she was violated.”

Hardison wondered how Sophie had managed to get through that without crying because that’s what he wanted to do.  He leaned against the wall, trying to pull himself together.

“You want to tell me more?”

“She doesn’t like being touched.  She has bruises all over her body, consistent with being assaulted.  She won’t tell me,” Sophie’s voice hitched.

“We can perform an exam on her,” Dr. Neal replied, being as sensitive as she could be.

“Alec, leave,” Sophie said forcefully.

“Are you sure?  Just, yeah.  I’ll be right outside.”

Hardison stood directly outside the door just in case Sophie needed him.  Something happened to Parker.  Hitting the wall hard, it didn’t make him feel better.  Nothing would make him feel better until they caught whoever hurt Parker and made them pay.  He’d definitely make them pay.


	15. Run

Chapter Fifteen—Run

“We need to go.  Now,” Jim Sterling yelled at his daughter.

“Dad.  What is going on?”

He thought she’d be safe now, with him protecting her, instead of with that bastard of a step-father.  Maggie had grabbed a bag and was standing at the door.

“Here,” he said as he handed her a gun.

“Seriously?  I can’t,” she replied as she tried to hand it back.

“Seriously.”

Olivia finally showed up with a bag and backpack in tow.

“I have a test tomorrow.”

“You’re not going to school.  It’s not safe here.”

Sterling picked up his phone and dialed.  “Sterling.  I need backup.  Yes.  Now would be good.”

Glancing out the window he noticed a car that had not been there before.  Shit was all he could think. It wasn’t one of his.

“Out the back.  Move.  Both of you, listen to me.  Whoever is after us will not be gentle.  Run as fast as you can and listen.  Do you understand?”

Both Maggie and Olivia shook their heads in agreement.

Oh Nate, what have you done, he thought.  What kind of hell did you rain down upon everyone?

 


	16. Liability

Chapter Sixteen--Liability

The door wouldn’t budge.  Having only eaten stale bread for the past few days made him weak, in addition to the blood loss.  He’d figure a way out of this, find his people.  He hadn’t seen another soul for days, except for the bread and a water bottle shoved through an opening.

“Dammit.  Come on, come on.  Think.”

Isn’t that what he was best at, thinking?  Planning?  Figuring out how to screw over the next CEO who was crooked?

He could hear water off in the distance, so they possibly hadn’t taken him too far from what had happened.  Oh, how much he regretted what had happened.

They could all be dead right then.  The look in Sophie’s eyes when he told her to run, the way Parker moved like she was injured, the way Eliot looked worried, the way Hardison looked angry.  He’d ruined every single person he’d ever laid eyes on. 

He should never have trusted anyone but his team.  When the call had come in from Archie, that someone was after him and he needed to disappear, Nate had taken that on, if just for Parker’s sake.  Only Archie was a pawn in a game that was bigger than any of this.

Parker was the deciding factor.  Archie had somehow gotten her involved too, getting her kidnapped in response.  Nate hadn’t been quick enough, smart enough to see that there was something else going on.  Someone, something was behind all that was happening.

Was it Moreau?  Could be Latimer.  Or any number of guys that were angry at what they had accomplished in the past few years.  Moreau was in prison.  Could he have escaped?  General Flores assured them that he would never leave his prison, but people could be bought.

He and Archie’s plan was good.  Hardison had obtained a new identity for him, his daughter and his grandchildren.  They’d fake the yacht exploding, make it look like an accident.  What went wrong?  Archie was adamant that Parker not know, going so far as to ask if there was some way their memories about him disappearing could be erased.  Eliot had a solution to that, finding something experimental that one of his many friends in black ops had been working on.  None of them would remember helping Archie except for Nate.  Only Parker had been kidnapped, Sophie refused to take the drug and he’d been shot.  None of it went as planned.

Eliot was supposed to get everyone off the boat.  He must have.  He watched it happen.  Parker screamed at him to stop, that she had to help Archie.  It was too late for the older thief.  The bullet hit Nate in the shoulder out of nowhere, taking him over the side of the boat.  He heard another shot, a scream from Sophie, then nothing.  Their fate had been in his hands and he had blown it.

“Should have quit drinking,” he said to no one. 

The shaking had been bad the night before, but had subsided for a bit.  Something else he had to deal with.  The possible deaths of his friends, the murder of Archie, and the fact he had no idea where he was, what was going on, and who was responsible.  He was never so screwed.

The door scraped open while he contemplated how he’d either kill himself or escape.  Both were appealing at that point.  He didn’t even have the strength to raise his head.  Looking sideways at the intruder, he wasn’t surprised at all who he saw.

“Mr. Ford, I can’t say it’s a very pleasant surprise.”

Dammit.  She’d left, praising him for doing her job for her.  He was free, he thought.  Free from prison, free from Moreau’s clutches, free from her meddling.

“What do you want now?” he asked, knowing he’d not get an honest answer from her.

“Moreau has become a liability.”

“He’s in prison.”

“His reach is further than we thought.”

“Was he responsible?”

She bent down to look him in the eye.  “What do you think?”

“I think I’m regretting ever meeting you.”

Using all the strength he could muster, he grabbed her throat and slammed her up against the concrete wall closest to him.  No one came to bail her out.  It would be nice just to snap her neck and be done with it.  He had nothing to live for, so why did it matter?

“Let go,” she managed to croak out.

“Why should I?”

“Your team.”

“Are dead.”

He squeezed tighter.  Rage poured through his veins, giving him a sense of strength he thought he didn’t have, ever.

“No.”

“What?  What aren’t you telling me?”

“They’re not dead.”

He released the Italian, shoving her away.

“And if you want them to stay alive, you’ll help me get rid of Moreau this time, for good.”

His legs gave out, taking him to the cold ground.

“They’re alive?”

“Yes.  Your man, Eliot, is as good as they say he is.”

“I’m counting on you to get her out,” he yelled to Eliot.

The vision swam in his head, when he yelled at Eliot to get them out, particularly Parker.  She was hurt. That bastard had tried, almost, dammit. 

“What do I need to do?”

“Penetrate an impenetrable prison, kill Moreau and take the fall for it."

Ah, there was the rub.  He had to take the fall for killing the man.  He knew she’d never let him out of prison for good.  Only this time he’d relish doing the deed.

“Then we have a murder to plan.”


	17. Tracker

Chapter Seventeen--Tracker

“So what do we know?”

Sophie had realized that they needed to run again, before someone figured out they were in the hospital.  Parker was checked out too, but not before Sophie had a conversation with the doctor who examined Parker.

“I just need to know. Was she sexually assaulted?”

The doctor didn’t want to share any kind of information with Sophie, but after telling her that she’d be the one to get her help, she had confirmed that no, she had not.  Sophie had been holding her breath, hoping that Parker had fought whomever it was off, that she wouldn’t have to live through that kind of trauma.  It was bad enough that Parker still believed that Nate was dead, or possibly dead.

Hardison arranged for them to get transportation to Parker’s warehouse, if just for a day or two until he could establish a better base of operations.

“One, Archie was involved.  Two, a boat exploded.  Three, Nate is possibly still alive, although all the authorities think otherwise.  Four, most, if not all of our aliases were blown in this.  Five, we have the alphabet in agencies either combing through or watching each of our places.  Six, Sterling has disappeared, as far as I know, with Maggie and Olivia.  Checked the school records.  She’s been a no show.  Seven, is there a seven?”

Hardison finished his talk as they sat either on the floor of the warehouse or on the bed.  Parker hugged her stuffed rabbit even tighter.

“Please don’t find Nate on the beach,” she repeated again.

Sophie sighed in resignation.  Parker was so fixated on that phrase, it was beginning to not only annoy her, but worry her.  Parker knew something that none of them did.  She’d have to probe the girl.  Now was good a time as ever.

“Parker, we have to know what that means.  You keep saying it.”

“Please don’t find Nate on the beach.”

“Parker,” Eliot started.

“He was supposed to be there.”

“He told you?”

Now they were getting somewhere.  Parker had starting coming out of whatever was going on with her.

“To meet him on the beach.  But he wasn’t there, so something happened.  I was afraid.”

“Afraid, sweetheart.  Why?”

“Because I shot him,” she cried as she hugged the bunny tighter.

“No, no.  You didn’t,” Sophie said as she took Parker in her arms.

“He was shot.  I saw him.”

Sophie closed her eyes, attempting to view the scene again.  She was sure that Parker had turned to face whomever had shot Nate.  That gun didn’t go off by itself.

“No, I’m fairly certain you shot whoever hurt him.”

“But he was there because of me.”

Both men were frozen as they listened to what had happened.  Sophie knew that neither remembered much if anything at all.

“Maybe.  Until we know.”

“I didn’t want him to wash up on the beach, be all alone.  I was alone.”

“You aren’t alone.  We’re here.”

Parker buried her head into the bunny.

“You’re not alone, Parker,” Eliot parroted what Sophie had said.  “If he was supposed to meet us on the beach, he must have had a good reason for not getting there.”

“We left him,” Parker said, voice muffled against the softness of the bunny.

“We left him,” Sophie realized.  They’d left him to die.

“There must have been a good reason.”

Hardison was right.  There must have been a good reason why he was left behind.

“There was a timer, on the boat.”

How that popped into her head, Sophie did not know.

“Rigged to explode?”

“Not sure.”

“So Archie’s dead, Sterling is on the run.  What else have we missed?”

“None of these people have anything in common,” Hardison added, tapping away on his computer.

“Except for us,” Sophie realized.  “They’ve either helped us or been involved with us.”

“Someone’s cleaning house.  That’s gotta be it.”

Eliot was right.  Who else would they go after?

“Eliot, burner phone.  Anyone else that any of you think might be in danger, they have to be contacted.”

Both Eliot and Hardison started making calls on their burners.  Sophie knew exactly who she’d call next.

“Hello, Tara.  I need you to do something for me.”

Eliot had his list in front of him.  It was short, thank goodness.  He’d contacted Aimee, Cora, a few others and urged them to make themselves scarce.  Aimee had told him that there was someone suspicious hanging around the stables.   He also urged a few other associates not to cave if anyone had asked about them.  Cora was going to close the bar and take a long awaited vacation.

“Who else?” he asked Sophie as she dialed the phone.

“Tara was the one I was worried about the most.  And of course, she was being tailed as I spoke to her.  She’ll be OK.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, not positive.”

This was why Eliot never wanted to get close to any of their clients.  Aimee was excluded because they had history.  Putting Cora in danger wasn’t what any of them had wanted.

Later on, they gathered all their info that they could get their hands on, hoping for a better outcome. 

“My nana said that there were FBI up in her grill.  She gave them a what for and sent them on their way.  I’m not sure how she’s going to be protected.”

Eliot made a phone call to a buddy he knew he could trust.  This was not good, for any of them.

“She can’t just disappear.  She’s got responsibilities.  Dammit, Eliot.”

Hardison hung his head low. 

“It’s OK.  Nate will fix this,” Parker whispered out, but with the acoustics in the warehouse, they each heard her small voice.

“We don’t even know if he’s alive.”

“He has to be.”

Sophie sighed.  One moment Parker thought Nate was dead by her hands. The next moment she had all the faith in the world that he was alive and attempting to fix whatever mess they were in.

“Your faith in Nate is admirable, Parker.  Do we have proof?”

Parker shook her head no.

“And why don’t Hardison and Eliot remember?”

“That’s because they took the drug twelve hours before,” Sophie blurted out. The memories that kept coming back hurt, but she felt she needed to push through, if just to get a better picture on what happened.

“If it is what I think it is, it takes almost twenty four hours to be fully effective.  And it doesn’t work on everyone.  Shit, I shouldn’t have agreed.”

“I didn’t take it.  Nate thought I did.”

“Yeah, probably good that you didn’t. We’d be flying totally blind.”

Eliot looked into her eyes, like he was trying to see what else she knew. Taking his hand in hers, she squeezed hard, wanting him to know that he was not at fault for the situation they were in.

“List of suspects?” she followed.

“Moreau, Latimer, CEO of VerdAgra, do we need to go on?” Hardison added.

“Let’s set up boards for each.  Hardison, we are going to need as much information that you can gather.  Eliot, you need to find Sterling.  If he went to ground, then he knows more than he’s letting on.  I’ll tap Tara and see if she has any info.”

“And I’ll find Nate,” Parker said, sitting up straight on the bed.

“How, mamma?”

“Which shoes was he wearing?”

The other three looked at each other like she was crazy.  Shoes?  Sophie had no idea.  Her head hurt enough trying to remember what happened.

“Parker, Eliot and I won’t remember what we had for breakfast that morning.”

“If he had on the right ones, there’s a GPS tracker in the heel.”

“When did that happen, Parker?  I’ve never put a tracker on Nate.”

Hardison was right.  He’d never asked the hacker to keep track of him.  Sophie didn’t remember one con where they put a tracker in Nate’s shoe.

“I did.  I was always afraid he’d leave, just like you left.”  Parker hugged her bunny tighter.  “He wouldn’t know, but I could find him.  He tends to attract trouble.”

Oh boy, was she right.  Nate did tend to attract the worst element.  What did he attract this time?  Who went after him, Archie, all of them to warrant blowing up a boat and killing Archie?  The three other bodies?  Were these the bad guys, the henchmen who held Parker?

“You got that right,” Hardison agreed.  “But if it got wet, it might not work correctly, if at all.  We gotta try though.  Give me the specs, Parker.”

It was almost like a switch had been turned on with the thief.  She was working the problem, not focusing on what had befallen her.  Sophie filed that away, knowing that if things were to get crazy again, she’d pull Parker out of whatever state she had gotten herself into and have her focus.

Parker still wouldn’t get too close to Hardison, no matter how hard the man tried to tell her, whether it be by words or actions, that he was not a threat.  Hardison wouldn’t hurt a flea, Sophie thought.  That’s why they never sent him in somewhere to take on any kind of violent threat.  It took so much work with Eliot just to show him how to throw a punch, much less take one. 

Eliot whispered in her ear, “Work the problem.  Good call.”

“Anything to get her back on track.”

“You put a kid GPS tracker on him? Seriously?  When he finds out…”

“It had the longest battery life.  It’s motion activated so it doesn’t have to be on all the time.”

“But how is it charged?”

“I installed a charger right by his shoes.  He’s never noticed.”

Parker cared about Nate way more than she had ever thought.  Nate didn’t treat her like an object, something that had to be perfected.  He treated her like a human being, a broken human being, but a human being nonetheless.  While sometimes not being as sensitive to Parker as he could be, he treated her as an equal, as a person of worth, not worthless, which is probably how her parents had treated her.  Archie had treated her as a project, as a mentor, but never as his daughter.  Nate not only treated her like she was his daughter, but as a friend.  Nothing could take that away.

“If it only activates when he walks, and it was charged before he put the shoes on, we might be in business.”

Hardison worked his magic.  That’s what Sophie called it.  She could never explain what he could accomplish.  It just seemed like magic to him.

“Cross our fingers it didn’t short out because of the salt water and bingo.  Oh shit.”

They all gathered around Hardison’s laptop.

“Aw crap,” Eliot growled.

“Dammit,” Parker agreed with the hitter.

“Nate, why?”

The only explanation was Moreau.  He had either gotten to Nate or someone who was still in his employ did.  She could hear Eliot breathing heavily. The triggers that Moreau could set off with the man. 

“Because he’s going to finish the job.  It should have been me.”

Parker turned to the rest of the group.  “Maybe he didn’t have a choice.”

“Bloody fucking hell.  I will rip her limb from limb when I find her. Mark my words.”

Sophie had figured it out.  It all became clear.

“Form a line, Soph.”

Eliot was on the same page as she was.

“Y’all gonna share with the class or do I have to guess?”

Sophie swore in Italian under her breath.

“Aw.  I get it.  The Italian bitch is back.”


	18. The Plan

Chapter Eighteen—The Plan

The Italian had the plans for the prison where Moreau was housed.  They built a brand new one just for him, and for some of his cronies.  San Lorenzo had also taken to housing other inmates that had somehow “stumbled’ onto San Lorenzo land, or had really come from other small countries that couldn’t deal with them.  That would make it even harder.  Prisons where common criminals were difficult to break into.  Prisons that were built especially for notorious, world renowned criminals would be virtually impenetrable. 

As the Italian spread the plans for the prison in front of him, Nate thought that the team should be beside him, planning this.  He didn’t have as many resources or different viewpoints as he usually did.  It was only a criminal like himself standing beside him, probably with differing goals.  Sure, the goal of getting rid of Moreau appealed to him.  He needed to go down.  But he had already played that song almost a year ago.  If he’d had another choice, he would have refused.  With nothing left to live for, why the hell did he care?

“Why?  Why now?”

“That welcoming party you encountered on that boat not enough for you?”

“Why didn’t you stop them, if you had me under surveillance?”

She crossed in front of him, examining the plans as she talked.

“You managed to give us the slip. We were coming.  Just not fast enough.”

She said we.  So she had resources.  There had to be more resources if he was going to pull this off.

“I have a team especially picked out to help you break in and secure Moreau.  Once he’s secure, then you can take him out.  I will need proof mind you.”

“Of course.”

Turning, Nate watched as two figures walked toward them.  He sighed in frustration.  He knew exactly who they were.  Were they good guys or bad guys in this?  And did the Italian know he’d met them before?  He’d play along.  Hopefully the other two wouldn’t flinch, clueing her in.

“Mr. Quinn, Ms. Dayan.  Your security detail.  We will go over the plans.  I have a man on the inside.  This is a quick and dirty operation.  You get in, you retrieve him and get out.  Then we execute our plan as scheduled.”

Interesting choice of words.  He just didn’t understand why they couldn’t kill him in the prison.  It could be a much simpler plan where no one would know who did the job.  This was something different.  She wanted the world to know that Moreau was taken out.  She wanted high drama, high stakes.  Nate had it figured out.  He’d just have to play along until then.  He had a prison break to plan and two hitters to turn to his side.  By the way Quinn was looking at him, it probably wouldn’t be very hard to convince him to at least give Nate a chance.  He had no idea about Dayan.  Since Eliot had captured her before, she might not be convinced easily.


	19. The Other Plan

Chapter Nineteen—The Other Plan

“How’d he get there under their radar?”

Eliot paced back and forth in their next safe house.  It wasn’t that Parker’s warehouse was blown, but just in case, it was better to keep moving.  What Eliot didn’t understand was why all the agencies were involved in this?  Since he didn’t know why Nate was on that boat in the first place, except to possibly help Archie, it would be very difficult to make the connection.

“He’s dead.  Remember?”

Parker sat on the sofa, looking blankly out at the window, which had its curtains drawn tightly against the rest of the world. She had seemed to be coming out of whatever had her in knots.  There were times though she looked to be slipping back into crazy Parker, asking about Nate like she did in the cottage.  He didn’t understand still why they wouldn’t find Nate on the beach.  Confusing to say the least.

Hardison was right.  Nate, for all intense purposes, was dead, if just in name only.  They’d be dead too if they didn’t solve what had happened.  Archie’s death would have been in vain.

“Why are all the agencies looking into this?  It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Vexing to say the least,” Sophie added, tapping her fingers on the table.

She looked better physically.  He’d heard her nightmares at night, late enough after the others had gone to sleep.  She’d pace after waking from them.  Her sleep schedule was getting shorter and shorter.  If they didn’t solve this, it would probably drive her to drink, as he watched her slam down a bourbon.  Eliot wanted to shake her.  She didn’t need to be Nate to solve this.  She needed to be Sophie to get them through this.

Taking the glass out of her hand, he placed it on the table away from her hands.

“Don’t,” she growled back at him.  “Don’t you take him away from me.  That I mean.  Shit.”

“Liquoring yourself up is not going to help you sleep any better and it certainly is not going to help you solve this any faster.”

Sophie pushed away from him, marching into another room, leaving Hardison and a comatose Parker in her wake.  Eliot knew he had to follow.  They didn’t have enough time for her to fall apart.  That could wait until they found Nate and rescued him or he was killed.  The Italian woman would not leave any more loose ends.  She had proven that loose ends needed to be dealt with and erased.

“Get back in there and help me plan this,” he said as he entered the small kitchen in their safe house.

This was one of Hardison’s safe houses, a small house with everything one would need, including the tech he’d need to help with the retrieval.  Eliot wanted to hug the man for his forethought.  This is just what the team needed, to get back into their element.  The four of them could work this out.  They’d worked together as this unit before, to break Nate out of prison.

Sophie gripped the counter tightly, like she was just holding it together to be able to stand.

“What if, what if we let the authorities handle it this time?  If all these agencies are looking into this, maybe we can convince them.”

“Sophie, even if we could explain this to them, they’d for sure take Nate into custody.  We’d never see him again.  That’s what some of these agencies do, make people disappear.  That’s what they’d do with us.  Remember who I used to deal with?”

“So who can we trust?”

“Not many people on that list.”

“This is too big for just the four of us.  And I don’t trust Parker to be able to do this.  That makes three.”

Eliot had been thinking of backup, who he’d trust to help them out.  There were a few names that came to mind.

“Just give us names.  We’ll pay them whatever is necessary.”

Her control was slipping from lack of sleep.

“I can put feelers out.  How about Tara?  She’s already in this from what you said.  They may just attempt to burn her anyway.”

“She’s already on her way here.”

Eliot scowled at her, getting closer so the other two would not hear what he had to say.

“Next time you clear that with me first.  I don’t care if she’s worked with us before, Sophie.”

“Eliot, we have no choice.”

“And if she was working for the other side?  Or one of the agencies?  She was trained by them.  I wouldn’t put it past her to work both sides.”

Sophie managed to get past his defenses and punched him for his comment about Tara. She really did have a punch like a freight train. 

“I am not chancing blowing this on how hard you can punch your way out of this.”

“Looking at all the angles, Soph.  I’m just as worried about him as you are.”

Maybe not as he watched her face scrunch up with pain and anguish.  Hell, he’d misjudged her feelings for Nate.  It wasn’t just something casual between the two of them.  Not only was she scared for him, this was the face of someone who was deeply and entirely in love with another person.  Why hadn’t he seen it?  Sure, they’d kept it quiet for a while, only telling them after being outed by another grifter.  They’d all chosen to look the other way at how they bantered and argued and teased each other for the last almost four years.  Their history went deeper, longer than the team.  She was the reason the team had formed in the first place.  She’d been there to help them solve the puzzle that was Dubenich.  If she hadn’t helped pull that con off, the money to help others would not have been available.  When Nate meant alternative revenue stream, he meant the money that they had made by taking Dubenich down.

“Tara will help. I’ve already made sure.  Trust me on this.”

“I trust you, Sophie.  I do.  What I don’t trust is anyone outside this circle. We were totally blown.  After this, and I’m not sure we can succeed, but we’re done.  Someone has taken us down.  It’s not something we can recover from.”

“Then let’s go out in a blaze of glory, shall we?”

“Young Guns, Sophie?  Your movie references are strange.”

“Oh god, you don’t know the half of it.”

She grinned a bit at him, then got serious again.  “What if we can’t save him?”

“He’s one tough son of a bitch.  You know that?”

“Yes.  He is.  Any ideas on help?”

“I thought I had one, but he’s gone to ground.  There’s a good possibility that he’s already involved by the cryptic message I got from him yesterday.”

“What did it say?”

“It’s sunny, old man.”

“Translate please?”

“He’s in San Lorenzo.  I know that for a fact.  And the fact that the text was in Italian.  I think that old man refers to Nate.  He certainly has never called me that.”

Sophie’s face lit up at the possibility of having someone on the inside.

“Can you trust him?”

“How much you wanna pay?”

“As much as it takes.  Offer him no less than a million. And a bonus if we get Nate back.”

A very large payday Sophie was offering. He didn’t think that Quinn would dare tell the Italian to get more from her.  He’d only do this as a favor to Eliot.  It would be out of respect.  Quinn certainly didn’t want to ruin his reputation.

“Any more ideas up your sleeve, Eliot?”

“We need to find Sterling.  We have to get some of these guys off our backs so we can work.”

“If he’s in hiding, we may never find him.”

“Found him,” Hardison yelled from the other room.

“Already had Hardison looking.”

“Let’s do this.”

As she passed by, Eliot snagged her hand, attempting to judge her state of mind.  He’d depend on her the most, to figure out if they could do this, help plan and execute that plan.  She had the most to lose on this.

“I will do everything in my power to make sure Nate comes back to you.  But I need you at a hundred percent.”

“If we had the time, I would take the time.  We are working on a clock here.  He’s already in San Lorenzo.  Hardison, when is our flight?” Sophie said as she walked away.

“As soon as we find Sterling and interrogate, I mean, talk to him, we can be on a flight within three hours.”

So they were going into a situation where they didn’t know what was going on, to a place where they wouldn’t have backup, to find a man that was supposed to be dead.

 


	20. Sterling

Chapter Twenty--Sterling

“This is ridiculous.”

Jim Sterling knew ridiculous.  Outrage was probably a better assessment.  Piecing things together, it was turning more and more into a clusterfuck of the nth degree.  And this time, it probably wasn’t Nathan Fucking Ford’s fault.  He was caught in the middle, just like everyone else was, including himself.

“Why don’t you just call in reinforcements?”

Maggie was getting more and more agitated at the situation.  They sort of knew that Nate was alive.  They knew his team was alive.  He had his most trusted employees working the problem.  Only it wasn’t getting solved.  He needed more information, quickly and quietly.  The Secret Service already had feelers out for questioning him, which had tipped him off to figure out exactly what had happened.  They took the killing of a foreign dignitary seriously.

“Maggie, I only have so many people I can trust.”

Maggie sat down beside him as he tapped away on his computer.  Thank god he’d actually learned a little about how to use various programs to hide his identity.  Nate had never wanted to learn, telling Sterling at one point that he was a geek.  Or was it a nerd?  He wouldn’t win any awards, but he could hold his own.

“Hello, Hardison.”

“You find them?”

“Oh.  I let them find me.”

“So we sit and wait?”

“No, you sit and wait while I go throw myself to the wolves.”

Sterling shut his computer down, just in case Olivia got it into her thick skull to sift through his files.  He’d password protected it, along with encoding all he had on it.  It’d take her days to access whatever information she needed.  Maggie had no idea, so it all was safe from her.  Of course, that didn’t mean he was safe from her scathing looks.  How had Nate survived it?

“I’m coming.”

“Oh, bloody hell, woman.  We’ve already had that discussion.”

“If you don’t trust anyone, then who will protect us?  Better that the both of us come with you.  Besides, I want to find out for myself what in hell is going on.”

Sterling had a better idea now with his searches and his information network that he knew more than Nate’s team.  They hadn’t exactly looked in the right place.  They didn’t know the enemy like he did.  That would put them in more danger than they would anticipate.

“I don’t want you anywhere near this, Jim.”

“You don’t have a choice, Maggie.  You’re not coming.”

“I’m an adult and can do…”

With that, he shut her up the only way he knew how.  Kissing her senseless worked, for the most part.  If Nate knew how long he’d wanted his wife (now ex-wife), he’d probably either never speak to him, punch him, or set his guard dog on him to have him disappear for good.  He’d clear this up, help free the bastard, and take Maggie and Olivia and live a much quieter life.   He was tired, too damn tired for this shit anymore.

“Not working,” she sighed as they pulled apart.

“Worth a try.” His phone rang on the table in front of him.  “And there they are now.  Hello, Sophie.”


	21. Quinn

Chapter Twenty-one--Quinn

“There’s a window right here in their security.  This passcode should take their system out for at least five minutes.  Cameras will be inoperable.  Punch through right here and we’re in.”

Quinn was good, but had never broken out of a prison, much less into one this sophisticated.  He did have a solid plan though, similar to what Nate and the gang had figured out the last time they did this.  Sensors would be mostly dark though, unless there was something that the Italian had missed.

“Ever broken into a prison?” Nate asked as the Italian explained to Dayan in Hebrew what was happening.

“Can’t say that I have.  You?”

“Out, not in.  If this one is as new as the one I broke out of, it’s going to be next to impossible.”

“We just need a few minutes.”

“Not going to matter if the guards are armed to the teeth, which I suspect they are.”

“As an old associate used to say to me, let’s go steal a prison.”

Nate attempted to not look surprised, but acknowledged that Quinn had contacted Eliot, somehow.  They’d know he was alive and in San Lorenzo.  He verified that at least one of them had survived the explosion.  Closing his eyes briefly, he savored the fact that maybe he did have something to live for.

He dreamed of Sophie, her soft skin next to his, Parker and her antics, Hardison and the smiles that he gave frequently, Eliot and his gruffness, only reserving his smile for his team.  The Italian would never know what he experienced daily with his team.  She hired, coerced, blackmailed, killed to get what she wanted.  What was it she wanted this time?  That was the puzzle he had attempted to solve.  It wasn’t just about breaking Moreau out of prison and killing him.  There was something else that she wanted.   Once he figured out her greatest desire, then he’d figure out the remaining piece to this puzzle.

Looking at the prison schematics, the use of two very professional, expensive bodyguards, the blown boat, the death of one of the best thieves in history.  It all was connected somehow, someway.  It wasn’t just because Archie was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  He’d done something to anger someone.  Supposedly out of the game, why would he want his identity changed so he could disappear?  Identities could be changed quickly and efficiently.  Disappearing off the radar was another thing.

“What are you getting out of this?”

The question startled the Italian, putting her on the defensive.  “Mr. Ford, just do your job.”

“And what’s your job in this? What’s your take?  What do you have to gain or lose?”

He could see the anger rising in her eyes. This just wasn’t about taking out Moreau.  She had been satisfied with putting Moreau away for good.  No, this was personal.  Very personal.  He’d hit on something.

“He is going to pay for what he did.”

“Yeah, not fun getting shot by him.  I know. I was there, remember?”

By the look on her face, that wasn’t the reason she wanted him dead.  As he concluded before, she wanted this to be very public.  She’d use him to get that.  Was it a warning to someone else?  Was she up to her usual antics, meddling in things she shouldn’t be meddling in?

“Do your job, Ford.”

Throwing down her phone, she walked over to the window to look out into the night.  The phone quickly disappeared inside Nate’s pocket, fingers dialing as quickly as he could without him not seeing what he was dialing.  He hoped that the pocket dial would work.  Hardison could trace it quickly.  Then his team could stop this nonsense and get him out.  As quickly as he snatched the phone, he placed it back on the table, muted but connected to whoever he had dialed.

“Why don’t you tell us why you’re doing this?”

“I don’t have to justify anything to you.  You’re a criminal, a thief.”

“One that you’ve so callously used to your advantage several times in the past.  You threatened me, my team.  If I knew why you wanted to kill Moreau, then maybe I’d be more than willing to cooperate.”

Turning, she shot a venomous look his way.

“You go in, put the supposed bad guy away and walk without looking back, not realizing the consequences of this act.  You use people, pull them in to help with your cons without thinking that there could be repercussions.  Does your computer genius track what happens?  Does your muscle put out his feelers to make sure things are well?  Do you celebrate while other suffer?”

“Who suffered?  If you just…”

“What?  So you can feel sorry for me?”

As he thought, very personal.  Moreau was responsible for something that went beyond putting him away for his business practices.  Why had this not come up before, when he was tracking Moreau before?  What is their connection?

“Who did he take from you?”

Grabbing her phone, she walked away quickly.  Quinn stood in the shadows, walking forward finally.

“You can be a bastard.”

“Comes with the job.”

“If you’re as good as Eliot says you are.”

Nate looked down at the prison schematics.  Yes, he was as good as Eliot thought he was.  Except he couldn’t fix this by killing Moreau.  He wasn’t going to be used by her again. He’d find another way to solve her problem. Giving her peace was not his job.


	22. Consequences

Chapter Twenty-two—Consequences

Hardison’s direct line rang.  It was the only number he gave to the team, to only be used in extreme emergency.  No one else had it.  It never rang because they were all together, trying to solve this and get Nate back.  It was his batline, the one thing that he was absolutely certain no one could hack, leave anyone vulnerable who knew it.

It crackled a bit, but he could hear a conversation going on.  No hello, no who is this.  Pressing the speaker, he waved Eliot over. Eliot was listening in to Sophie talking to Sterling, so he ignored Hardison’s insistence.  He widened his eyes, trying to make Eliot realize that it was important.

Parker knew exactly who it was, rising from the sofa slowly.  Placing her hand over her mouth, she gestured to Hardison’s computer.  Sophie stopped her conversation with Sterling and just looked over at Parker. 

“What?” Eliot finally asked.

Hardison raised the volume on the internet line he had hooked to a computer server somewhere out in the wild blue yonder.

“Who suffered?  If you just…”

“What?  So you can feel sorry for me.”

“Nate?” Sophie whispered.

“Hey, what in hell is going on?” Hardison could hear from Sophie’s burner phone.

“Who did he take from you?”

Hardison closed his eyes, hoping against hope that someone wasn’t playing some kind of sick joke on them.  All he could hear then was the clicking of something.  Hardison cut the connection quickly, so that whoever the phone belonged to wouldn’t realize that Nate had just dialed the batphone, or as Hardison knew it as his lifeline to his team in times of trouble.

“He’s alive.”  Sophie sat down at the table, pulling the phone back to her ear.

“Well, now we know for sure.”

“She’s going to kill him,” Parker announced.

“Why, Parker?  Why?” Eliot asked as he came up behind her, putting a hand to her shoulder.  She didn’t flinch this time.

“No, not Nate.  Moreau.  He took something from her.”

“Michael?” Sophie said into the phone.  “But why?” she asked Sterling.

“Vittori.  He was on that boat.”  Sophie had hit speaker so they all could hear what she had just heard.

“Four bodies,” Hardison reminded the group.

“Moreau put out a hit on Vittori,” Sterling told the group.  “That’s why all those agencies are involved.  Moreau had the president of a country assassinated.  Secret Service takes that very seriously.”

“Archie, Vittori.  Who are the other two bodies?”

“The guy who shot Nate,” Parker answered.

“Parker, are you sure?”

She shook her head yes, turning back to the sofa and her cocoon she had made with a blanket and pillow.

“Who’s the fourth body then?” Eliot asked.  “Sterling?”

“Spencer, we don’t have confirmation,” Sterling started to tell him.

“I know who it was.  I know.”

Hardison looked at Eliot, not knowing what the hitter knew.  Eliot knew that country better than any of them, had connections there that they did not.

“Sterling, we need any information you have on the Italian woman who kidnapped Nate.   Please?” Sophie asked of the person who was once Nate’s friend.

“She’s not going to rest until Moreau is dead.”

“Sterling, why Nate?” Eliot said as he walked over to Sophie’s phone.

“Consequences.”


	23. Aftermath

Chapter Twenty-three--Aftermath

“Consequences.”

Those Sophie could relate to in the extreme.  Every time she took down a mark in her early days, she thought about what would happen.  She stopped that way of thinking quickly after her screw up with William and the Duchess incident in England.  That’s when she promised herself that she’d never look back.  She was careful with her marks after that, only the rich and wealthy, only the marks that wouldn’t miss what she was taking.  Only Nate was the constant, running after her.  But she never hurt him.  Ever (except for that one time).  The only consequences she ever suffered was the fact that she could never have Nate.  And that wasn’t entirely her fault.

Now for Nate, there always seemed to be consequences.  He was married, so there were consequences, of course created in his mind, if he strayed.  There were consequences if he didn’t do his job, which he did, for the most part.  He always had a difficult time proving that she was ever involved in any theft when it came to IYS.  There were consequences when he couldn’t get that experimental treatment for his son.  There were consequences when he couldn’t deal with his son’s death.  He lost everything, including his job, his wife, his life.  Nate suffered excruciating consequences where most men would have crumbled.  It was only when Sophie joined this crew that she saw the consequences of what they did. 

She’d been sympathetic to Nate, at first.  His drinking, his recklessness, his sadistic qualities had all come out of the fact that he had suffered great loss.  She was sure he would never had gotten to these levels if his life had stayed the same.  The consequences had shaped his life, in some ways not good.

Every time they hit a mark, made that mark give over something he or she possessed, there had been consequences.  Many went to jail, many lost their fortunes, their worth, their standing in the community in which they belonged.  Most though did not lose their lives.  That’s usually where they drew the line.  Except in the case of Moreau.  Something had happened during that job, a job which none of them had wanted to take.  Eliot still never told them what happened in that warehouse.  Sophie could guess.  She knew what he did before.  She also knew that he despised what he did before.  The fact that he did not like touching guns, instead using his brawn and brain to fight his way out of a situation had told her that he had used weapons, particularly guns, too many times.  Those consequences, the fact that he had killed not for self-defense, but because his boss told him to, shaped Eliot into the man he was.  The consequences that he suffered were life changing. 

Parker’s life revolved around consequences that were out of her control.  While Nate and Eliot made choices, which in turn caused things to happen, Parker never wanted to be an orphan, never wanted to live with more families than was necessary, never wanted to become a thief.  It was all thrust upon her by the time she was a teenager.  She was broken because of others.  Just like she was broken now.  Whoever had assaulted her on the boat knew what they were doing. 

Hardison was probably the only one of them who had not suffered consequences either in his control or out.  He was probably the most normal of the group.  Sophie guessed that he was just lucky, having been taken in by his nana, or foster parent at a young age.  Not that he didn’t have to learn how to survive, it’s just he never suffered anything as devastating as Nate or Eliot or Parker. 

Did they ever look back after a job?  Did Hardison keep track?  Or did he only look back after when something went wrong?  She knew he had feelers out everywhere.  That’s why they attempted to clean up after themselves.  They had always tied everything up into a little bow.  It was never about the money.  They all had enough to last a lifetime. 

This was the one time where the consequences mattered.  They all thought that Moreau would be put away for good.  The collateral damage was there, apparent to all of them, but it was for the common good.  A country was free to practice democracy, a bad man was put down, and all was well.  Only in their business, all was not well.  Moreau had somehow managed to manipulate the system yet again.  And people were dead because of that. 

Sophie held the phone a bit tighter when Sterling told her that Vittori was dead, probably before that boat blew up. 

“Name, Sterling. We need a name.”

Sterling sighed over the line.

“We need to meet.  This all is so over your heads.”

“We stole a country.  Not like we haven’t been over our heads before,” Hardison added.

“This time it’s not just a warehouse full of goons dead.”

Eliot’s fists clenched.  That’s what Sophie had figured.  Only Nate and Eliot weren’t talking about it.  How he took on a warehouse full of goons by himself?  He didn’t have enough fists to do that.

“General Flores.”

“And they think they need you because you can hit,” Sterling sarcastically answered back.  “I can help you.  If I don’t, none of us will come out of this alive.”

Sophie looked at Eliot, confirming what she had surmised when Sterling told her that it was Michael on that boat.  That’s why they were keeping the identities of the other men out of the press.  Until the authorities found out who had set the bomb, then they’d be silent.  Of course, it possibly had been Nate and Eliot who had placed the bomb, hence the burning of everything they had built in Boston.

Eliot shook his head at the rest of them, agreeing without words that they had to cooperate.

“Sterling, we need room to breathe.  What can you do?”

“Get us to San Lorenzo.  After that, who knows.”

Consequences be damned.  They had to get Nate back, alive and in one piece.  If he broke Moreau out just to appease the Italian, for her to get her revenge, then he’d end up dead.  Those were consequences that Sophie could not live with. Nate had suffered too much.  He deserved a break this time.  She’d kill each and every one of them to make that happen.

 


	24. Tara

Chapter Twenty-four--Tara

Eliot didn’t trust her fully.  He knew they needed someone on the outside, someone who hadn’t been seen in San Lorenzo.  Tara would fit the bill, he just didn’t know whether he could trust her.  When they were pulling cons, she was perfect.  That was before the government agencies had gotten involved, the international community was involved.  He knew she was trained by one of them, probably military, possibly CIA or FBI afterwards.  She still had connections.  They could still get to her, try to infiltrate their small group.  Sophie was too trusting.  He would not be.

“What kind of hell did all of you rein down?  It was a challenge just getting into the country.”

Still the same old brassy, ballsy woman who probably would kick him in the nuts if she thought he was thinking these things.  She could handle herself, mostly.  Her hair was pinned up, glasses in place, makeup non-existent.  Her skirt was just above the knee, shirt buttoned up, hiding almost every curve that the woman possessed.  The heels were low, non-descript, made for moving fast if needed.  She was hiding in plain sight. 

“Surprised you didn’t get tagged once you entered the country?” Eliot said as he picked her up from the designated spot.

“Me too.  Going through Canada probably helped.  I have contacts there.”

“I’ll bet.”

“So is he really dead?”

Eliot closed his eyes for just a moment, knowing that Nate wasn’t dead, but General Flores was.  How his old friend had ended up on that boat was a mystery.  Maybe he was protecting Vittori?  There was no way he was in on kidnapping the leader of his country.  No way.

“Nate?  No.  It was close though.  This is all so fucked up right now.”

“I don’t like being visited by goons, even if they do supposedly work for the good guys.  I had to pull every trick in the book to lose them.”

He’d really love to study her, figure out her tells.  Sophie would know, but would she ignore them trying to get Nate back?  Sophie would do just about anything to get Nate back, minus hurting the team. 

“Something we need to talk about, darlin’.”

“Hey, if you think that I rolled.”

Eliot slammed on the brakes of the car that he had boosted just to pick her up.  He knew he was taking a chance pulling over to confront her.  Driving the car around an abandoned building, he turned off the engine.  He just needed to get her to the meeting site in one piece.  This was what he needed though.  He had to trust her, implicitly and without doubt.

“I have no idea what you did.  We have been compromised to the point where we are screwed every which way to Sunday.  People are dead, Tara.  People that should not be.”

There wasn’t any kind of tell that Eliot could discern.  Maybe she was telling the truth?  How could he know?

“And I don’t want to be one of those people.”

“Now tell me, how’d you get here?”

“I called in a few favors.”

Eliot moved closer to her, to intimidate her to tell him what the hell was going on.

“What kind of favors?”

“National security favors.”

Grabbing her by the front of her shirt, he pulled her up, face to face, mere inches.

“Just calm down, cowboy.  No one thinks any of you are responsible for killing Vittori.  The evidence does not point to any of you.  That I know.  I also know, could you just let up?”

Eliot did not want to let up on strangling her.  Maybe Parker should have dropped her off that building.

“No.  Now talk.”

“I’m here because of the team.”

“Are you bugged?  You have a tracker anywhere?”

“Wanna search me, big boy?  Of course not.  I ditched that the first opportunity I had.  Hence these awful clothes.”

Eliot felt around her blouse, up her skirt, rough but thorough.  He attempted to ignore her smooth skin, the way she smelled. Just because she was dressed like a schoolteacher didn’t mean that he didn’t notice that she was a desirable woman.  Fuck, he needed to get laid.

“I would have stripped if you wanted, Eliot.  You just had to ask.”

Her breathing had picked up as his hands roamed, eyes blown wide as he felt for a wire. 

“Your shoes?” he asked.

She looked at him strangely, but pulled them off for him to examine.  Then she handed him anything else he might want to examine, including her watch.

“Phone?”

He examined everything as she watched closely.  Prying her phone apart, he found what he thought would be there.

“What the fuck?  I did not know,” she said as he held up a small piece of electronics.

“It’s passive.  They can’t hear us.”  Eliot smashed against the console.  “Now you can strip.”

Tara blushed, but complied.  Eliot checked every part of her clothes, throwing them out the window as he did.

“I am not driving around without clothes.”

Eliot pulled a bag out of the back and handed it to her.

“Compliments of Sophie.  You’re lucky she trusts you.  I wanted you to ride there naked.”

“Oh I bet you did,” she said as she dressed in the clothes Sophie picked out.

“Wait. Bra?”

“Shit. Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Turn around.”

Eliot crossed his arms, daring her to make him.

“You’re an asshole, you know that?”

She threw it at his face, covering his eyes just for a moment.  Parker was right.  Damn she was absolutely stunning without clothes.  She quickly dressed as Eliot watched, grinning as he did.  He wanted her to feel uncomfortable, if just for the fact that if he did have to take her down, he could.

He threw out the rest of her clothes, including the underwear, out the window and started the car.

“Now that you’ve gotten your thrills, where are we going?”

Before he could answer, he pulled the syringe from the hiding place and stuck it in her arm quickly before she could fight back.

“As I said before, asshole,” she said, voice slurring from being drugged.

“You don’t know the half of it, sweetheart.”

 


	25. Infection

Chapter Twenty-Five—Infection

Nate shivered.  At least he didn’t have to spend his night on the cold floor of the prison where she stuck him after retrieving him from the ocean.  The room at least had some heat.  He wasn’t shivering from lack of heat.

His arm was on fire.  Placing him in some dungeon after getting shot wasn’t the best plan that she’d ever devised.  The wound had to be infected.  The one time that he’d been shot in the bank, Eliot had pumped him full of antibiotics for at least three days, then had him switch to pills.  Plus Eliot had been meticulous on cleaning it out and changing the bandages frequently.  Nate had nothing except someone had stitched him up.  The blood loss plus the fact he hadn’t eaten much in the days prior probably meant his immune system was shot.

Slowly sitting up, the room swam a bit as he did.  Nate was still locked up. She didn’t trust him.  He didn’t think she ever would.  Rubbing his hands over his head, he could feel that his temperature was probably climbing.  If he didn’t do something quickly, he’d never make it into the prison much less complete the job.  His hands shook as he dropped them, not from the lack of alcohol.  He kind of wished it had been. 

Attempting to stand, he staggered over to the door and tried it.  It didn’t move.  The other door along the wall had to be a bathroom, so he took advantage of that.  Peeling off his jacket, he threw that to the ground in disgust.  The shoes came next, along with his pants.  Turning on the water, he waited until it became hot and stepped in, shirt still on his body.  The clothes were now four days old, old blood mixed with smell that was just not right.  Leaning up against the tiled wall, he managed to unbutton it finally, flinging it to the ground.

The arm did not look right, even to his untrained eyes.  Slowly slipping down onto the floor of the shower, Nate wondered if they’d find him dead, water cascading down his front and head. It felt good though, just to not be covered in sweat and four day old ocean water that had dried.  Was it four days?  Now he was losing his sense of reality, time.  He just didn’t remember anymore. 

The shower wasn’t deep enough for him to drown, but he felt like he could if he wanted it to.  Crawling out of the shower finally, he collapsed on the floor, not caring anymore if the prison break happened.  The floor felt too good to him to even care.

 


	26. Flashback

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost to the finale. Lots of flashbacks in this one.

Chapter Twenty-six—Flashback

“Maria Alonzo Flores.”

Sterling actually handed over a file to Sophie and Eliot. 

“I cannot believe that you’re actually being helpful.”

Sterling rolled his eyes her way, but tried to ignore the fact that Sophie did not like him, even if he was helping them, even if he was now involved with Maggie.

“When it’s my ass on the line also, I like to get involved.”

“Ok, so what do we do?”

Why did he have to bring her with him? Maggie stood with her hands on her hips, looking over his shoulder at the file.  Sophie grabbed the thing out of his hands and handed it to Eliot, who took it, opening it with sharp movements.

Sophie knew that Eliot was pissed beyond belief.  Throughout the San Lorenzo deal, no one had told him that the Italian was related to General Flores.  That was probably why she had been given access to Moreau.  Why else would they?  The general and she being related made perfect sense.  They made it into the country without Moreau knowing the first time.  If Moreau had that much control over the country, then he would have been clued into their arrival.  He had not.  He only knew about the team’s involvement with the election when they were already far ahead of the eight ball. 

“What do you know?” Eliot asked Sterling.

“More than you,” he answered back.  “If you had gone into this with more information…”

“Listen, just give us the information we need.  Nate is out there, possibly shot.”

“Again?” Maggie yelled, knowing about Nate’s propensity to get himself into trouble when there were weapons involved.

“He was trying to help,” Parker said, voice sounding soft and a bit scared.

“Please share, Parker,” Sterling said as he finally noticed Parker curled up on the sofa.

Hardison’s defensive posture usually wouldn’t scare a flea, but in this case, Sophie thought she should warn Sterling that he meant business.

“We know that Flores and Vittori are dead (A hand visible, outstretched, lying on the deck of the boat).  We know that there are two other bodies, the other one being Leach.  What we don’t know is the other dead body lying in a morgue.  No ID.  I need to know what went on aboard that boat.”

“Back off, Sterling,” Eliot quietly said to the man, placing himself in front of Sterling.

“Don’t go there,” Hardison backed Eliot up.

“Archie shouldn’t have taken the job.  It was too risky.”

They all turned to look at Parker.  She looked straight ahead, eyes blank, like she was reading a story instead of living it.

(A flashback to what happened) “He was supposed to steal the plans to an impenetrable prison.  Only he didn’t realize that once he did, he’d never be able to live after.  Too many people knew he pulled the job.  They all wanted the plans.  Moreau, the Italian, the San Lorenzo government, probably several of the other criminals in that prison.  He had opened a can of worms he had no idea how to close.  Nate was supposed to help him disappear.  It didn’t work out that way.”

“Parker, you don’t have to go through this if you don’t want to,” Sophie said, reacting to the way Parker looked so dead to her.

(Parker listens in on a conversation Nate has.)  “I found out what Nate was doing.  Once I did though, that made me a target.  They used me as bait, for Nate, for Archie.  It’s my fault,” she cried.  “It’s my fault that Archie died. (Archie falls to the deck of the boat.)  It’s my fault that Nate is in this too deep.”

Parker hugged her legs to her.  Sophie wanted to get her out of there, so Sterling wouldn’t question her.  Would this do more damage to Parker? 

“Something happened, didn’t it?” Maggie asked.  “Who hurt you?”

Sophie moved over to Maggie, attempting to make her stop her line of questioning.  Parker’s well-being was most important at that moment, not Maggie’s curiosity.

“Moreau,” Eliot whispered.  “His M.O.”

“I kept telling him to stop. (Parker throws a punch toward a man.) I could hear Nate yelling outside for me. (Nate struggles against at least three large men holding him.) They were hurting him.  Archie was already dead. It’s my fault.”

With that, Parker started crying.  All the deadness disappeared to be replaced by tears.

“Archie was trying to protect me.  So was Nate.  I shouldn’t have meddled.  I should have let Nate fix this.  I was too curious.  I should have let it go.”

This wasn’t news to Sophie.  From what little she remembered, this fit the scenario.  She had no idea what Archie had stolen, but it had to be serious, enough for all these groups to go after him. 

“Why were Flores and Vittori there?” Sterling questioned her again.

“Jim, stop.  Just give her time,” Maggie begged.

“We don’t have time.  If we don’t figure this out now, they will break Moreau out.  Flores has no idea what she is doing.  Don’t you understand that?  Moreau wants to be broken out. If Nate and Flores help him, if it’s just for revenge or whatever she’s trying to do, it will fail.  I cannot let them.  Do you all understand that?  If he gets out, none of us will be safe.”

Maggie turned to him, eyes going wide.

“Why you?” Sophie finally asked.  “You weren’t involved with Moreau when we were asked to take him down.”

“Why did you go to Italy last month?”

Sophie swung around to Maggie, wondering the same thing herself.

“For a meeting with Vittori and General Flores.”

“Dammit, Sterling.  You knew this was going to happen,” Eliot finished out Sophie’s thought.

“All I knew was the plans were gone.  The two were attempting to figure out this mess.  That prison brought in millions of dollars to the economy.”

The file that Sterling had passed to Eliot finally got the attention it needed from Hardison. Sophie watched his face as it turned dark and foreboding. 

“Why?  Just, why?  This can’t be happening.  Who is this?”

Hardison flung the file over to Sophie and Eliot, interrupting Sterling.  If they had been in their element, like Nate’s place, Hardison could pull up files and pictures and info at the click of a button.  They had to work through this information bit by bit, with only a few computers and a television that acted like one of Hardison’s fancy screens.  All the information they had though was paper, memory and sharing.

Sophie really couldn’t believe what she was seeing in the file.  There had to be a mistake.  Eliot flipped through the file faster and faster, like the information would be explained better if he could place the photo on the second page.

“You wanna explain this?” Hardison said, advancing on Sterling as he did.

“Flores had a second in command. (Shot of man menacing Parker on board the boat.)  What she didn’t realize was he’d been bought off by Moreau.”

“You knew this?  Before Nate and Parker were in danger?  You couldn’t have told us? Warned us?”

Hardison backed Sterling up against a table, ready to put his hands around the man’s neck.

“Alec, calm down,” Maggie started, standing beside Hardison in an attempt to stop him from ripping Sterling’s head off.

“That is not me. Understand that.  What in hell is going on?”

Hardison looked to be ready to kill Sterling.  Sophie watched as the photo drifted to the floor, having been thrown in the air.  It was like Hardison was looking back at her, but with a menace that she’d never seen on the hacker’s face.  Sure, there were some things that were different, like the eyes were closer set on this man.  The eye color was a bit different, lighter than Hardison’s were.  The skin wasn’t as dark also.  If Sophie had to guess though, this man could be used to mimic Hardison though.  It wasn’t him.

“He’s the fourth body then?” Sophie said as she picked up the photo.

“Body riddled full of bullets,” Sterling informed everyone else.

Tara, who had been quiet, picked up the rest of the file.  “Kill shot through the head, multiple shots, placed to do the most damage.  If the others didn’t kill him, then the shot to the head did the job.  Close range.  He was executed.” (Parker, gun in hand, moving in on a man lying on the boat deck, in obvious pain.)

Parker rocked, hands over her ears, blocking out what Tara had said.

“He hurt Nate. (Nate falls over the railing, shot in the shoulder.)  I had to stop him.  I had to stop him before he hurt Sophie. (Person who hurt Parker was moving toward Sophie, fists raised.)  I had to stop him.”

Maggie was the only one who moved, enveloping Parker in a tight hug.  Now Sophie knew what had happened.  Parker had to kill the man who shot Nate, who was gunning for her, and possibly the rest of the team.  It was up close and personal.  Parker could have left the man riddled with bullets.  She had gotten up close and killed the man.  It wasn’t just because of Nate being shot.  He had been the one that injured Parker.  No wonder she wanted nothing to do with Hardison. She probably was reliving the scene in her head multiple times a day.

Sophie sat down next to where Maggie was holding Parker, watching as her tears streamed down her face.

“You did the right thing, Parker.”

“He said, he said he’d do the same thing to you as he did to me. (Man holds Parker by the neck, grinning as he did.)  I couldn’t let that happen.”

Sophie grabbed the other woman’s hand and held on, knowing that Parker sacrificed herself for Sophie’s benefit and possibly for Nate. 

“We take Moreau down this time, for good.  If anyone disagrees with this plan, then get the hell out.”

They all looked at Sophie. Both Eliot and Hardison nodded in agreement, knowing that she meant business. 

“Only four bodies.  Parker said that someone was holding Nate back.  We have more players. And if we didn’t set off the bomb, then who did?” (Two, possibly three men, triggering a bomb as Eliot pulled out the rest of the team.  A boat idles off in the distance, Nate nowhere to be found.)

Sophie wasn’t thinking that far ahead, but Eliot was.

“Are you sure that you didn’t trigger the bomb?” Tara asked.

“I don’t remember,” Eliot replied, frustrated.

“Who else was on that boat, Parker?”

They all glared at Sterling, but he was right.  They needed to know who else they had to confront.

“Russian.  They were Russian.”

And it just kept getting bigger and bigger.  Sophie knew they were out of their element here.  They conned people out of money, prestige, their company, just for the little man who needed their help to get revenge.  This had nothing to do with that. 

“Sterling, we need a list of prisoners.”

“Already anticipated that,” Sterling said as he handed over another file.

“It’s not just Moreau that wants out.”

“And if Flores has the plans, then they’re a target also,” Tara said, voicing what Sophie had figured out moments before.


	27. Almost There

Chapter Twenty-seven—Almost There

“Get up.”

Nate was dreaming about Sophie, lying on some beach, drink in hand.

“Oh dear.  I managed to forget a drink for you, darling.”

Nate sat down beside her, not dressed for the beach at all.  His suit clung to him, sweat pooling at his back and neck.

“I know what you’re doing, Sophie.”

“Really?  And here we are.  Relax, Nate.  Have a drink.  On me.”

Pulling his tie off, he collapsed beside her.

“I really don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“Hiding.  It’s a lovely place to hide.”

“Yeah.  I like the view.”

A tanned Sophie in a bikini, sand that stretched for miles, blue water, a breeze blowing, trying to cool his overheated body.

“You can’t stay here for long, you know.”

“Yeah.”

Tugging his hand up, Sophie placed light kisses on his fingers.  Her lips were cool to the touch, making him sigh.

“Sophie, tell me what to do.”

“Plan M?” she started

“Nah.  Hardison doesn’t need to die in this one.”

“Plan Z?” He hated that one.

“Hey, that’s the one where everyone dies.”

“Guess that one won’t work.”

“Plan F?”

“The one where we’re all fucked?”

“Just pick one.”

“Plan N.”

Sophie looked at him, really looked at him, pulling her sunglasses down.

“From what I remember and tell me if I’m mistaken, isn’t that the one where you die?”

“It’s on the table.”

“You might want to rethink that one.”

Her hand was cool against his cheek, stroking it gently.

“Come back to us, Nate.  We need you.  I need you.”

Reaching for her, he drew her into a kiss, taking his time as he did.  His breathing was labored as he did.

“Please come back to us.”

With that, Nate opened his eyes, looking up into the Italian’s face. 

“Plan N,” he managed to croak out.

“Ford, do not die on us.”

Nate laughed a bit as he watched someone putting an IV into his arm.

“I almost died?” he asked as we watched several people move around the room.

“Pull it together.  I want him up and walking by tomorrow morning.”

Whatever personnel she had working for her jumped as she said this.  Nate didn’t care.  If he did survive until tomorrow, he’d be weak and probably unable to function.

Nate groaned as his vision blurred, turning to black finally.  Oblivion was better than the pain. Definitely better than the pain.

 

Nate awoke with a start to a darkened room.  Was he still dreaming?  His dreams weren’t all that pleasant. Moreau was after him, then went after Parker.  Parker morphed into Sophie, who screamed his name as he jolted awake.  The place where the IV was in place itched.  It was taped securely though, so he couldn’t do that much about it.

His head swam as he attempted to sit up.  Even on the worst bender he’d ever had, he never felt this run down.  It was like his system had rebooted and couldn’t gather the data to start over.  Hardison would like his analogy.

Nate certainly didn’t want to end up on the hard ground again, seeing as it was linoleum instead of just concrete this time.  It would still hurt.  His hands shook as he managed to make it up.  There was no way he was getting any further without resting. 

What was it that the Italian had said?  That he had to be ready the next day?  Was it the next day?

“Still trying to push the envelope, Ford?”

The voice entered the picture as the door slowly opened.  Thank goodness it wasn’t the Italian.  He had nothing left in him at the moment.

“Treating you like shit had its consequences,” Quinn stated as he entered the room.

Nate was in some kind of hospital gown now.  Luckily they hadn’t put back on those clothes that he had lived in for almost a week. 

“If we have no mastermind, we don’t succeed,” Dayal said as she followed Quinn into the room.

“You speak English?”

“Only when necessary.”

Nate shook his head warily.  “Eliot know that?”

“Most definitely.”

“So now that we’ve established that we all know each other in one capacity or another, how are we going to stop this from happening?”

Quinn stating the obvious, Nate thought.  There were more issues at stake though, more going on with this than just breaking out Moreau and killing him.

“We’re not going to be the only ones gunning for that prison.”

Dayal’s eyebrows shot up.  Apparently the Italian didn’t tell them everything.

“Only muscle.  I guess we not get more information?”

“No.  Apparently not.”

“If you’re as good as Eliot says you are, where do we go from here?  You can’t even stand.”

Nate took a deep breath, willing himself to gather strength he knew he probably didn’t have.

“She’s definitely not going to take no for an answer.  Listen, Moreau’s people are going to be waiting for us.  Probably others too.  The Italian is…”

“You don’t know her name, do you?” Quinn questioned Nate.

“And you do.  Please share.”

“Flores.”

“Shit.  Now it all makes sense.”

Nate closed his eyes, trying to think ahead, trying to plan something that might dissuade the woman from the prison.  Now it was almost a given that she’d want Moreau’s head on a platter.

“Never easy.  This is never going to succeed.  She’d have to see that.”

“The problem is Ford is because you succeeded the last time taking him down, she thinks you can perform miracles.”

“I can’t even stand up.  Just get me the plans again.  Is there a way to get me a computer?”

Dayal and Quinn looked at each other.

“Secretly,” Dayal stated as she paced back and forth.

“This isn’t going to work with just the three of us and a few muscle bound goons.”

“I don’t think we will get paid for this,” Dayal finally concluded.

“Speak for yourself.  My payment’s coming from an alternate revenue stream.”

Nate had to smirk at that.  Only his team would say that.  He would kiss every one of them if he could.

Once Nate studied the plans again, ate some actual food, he felt a bit better.  One of the goons brought him new clothes which fit him.  It took a lot out of him, but he was able to dress himself.  Everything hurt, but that meant that he was still alive and kicking.  He’d take that any day.

“Where is my plan?” Flores said as she entered his room.

“This is suicide.”

“Moreau will pay.”

“It’s not going to bring back General Flores or Vittori.  You know that.  I can just guess how many other groups will be gunning for us to break the prison wide open.  Is that what you want?  How many wanted men are in that prison?  Do you even care about that?”

“You will do as I ask or your team will suffer.”

“Suffer?  I can’t even imagine at this point what they’ve been through.  Remember, I was there on that boat.”

Nate’s voice rose, his body shaking in anger.

“That man, your so called assistant, tried to violate Parker.  He beat up Sophie.  Set that bomb.  If it hadn’t been for Parker, we’d all be dead.  Now she has to deal with the fact that she killed someone.  So don’t tell me they haven’t suffered.”

“They trusted you, Michael and my brother.  They trusted you with their lives.”

“Just stop and think.  Is this what your brother would want?”

“My brother was a good man.  Michael was, he was innocent.  A schoolteacher.  You never should have pulled him into all this mess.”

“You should have never lied to me, used me and my team, threatened me, us.  Maybe I’d be more willing to help.”

“Get ready to leave in four hours.  We must begin or all will be lost.”

“We’re not the only ones who have these plans, are we?”

From what he could tell, they had five hours in which the security in question would be vulnerable.  If whoever else was working on this knew that, they’d have competing crews at the prison at the same time. 

It would be a miracle for them to get to Moreau in time and pull this off.  Another miracle would be for Eliot to show up unannounced.  He knew that the hitter was still alive and kicking.  If his team were even up for it, which he kind of doubted, could they help him?  He’d have to somehow get a message to them.  He needed help, desperately, to pull this off. 

 

 


	28. The One Where the Plan Goes to Shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to be so slow in posting on this. I've let it get away from me. It went one way when I wanted to go another way. The con in this one did not go as planned. Oh well. The characters hijacked it! Almost there though. Just didn't go the way I thought. Enjoy!

Chapter Twenty-eight—The One Where the Plan Goes to Shit

“So who do I go in as?” Tara asked Eliot as they grabbed their bags. 

Her stuff was all provided by Sophie.  Eliot insisted that she not be allowed anything that Sophie did not personally acquire. 

“Inspector for prisons.  Hardison is already working on the cover.  If you’re there when everything goes down, then maybe we can stop them.”

“And Sterling?”

“As himself. He’s too recognizable.  He’ll be there in his Interpol capacity to visit one of the other prisoners.”

“So it’s just the two of us on the inside?”

“Pretty much.”  Of course, he didn’t want to tell her his other contingencies, for now.

“I just wanted to say sorry about your friend. In this business, most people are enemies or liabilities.  Obviously General Flores was neither.”

“He was a good man.  Not sure how his sister is mixed up in all this.  We should have done a better job on her the last time.  The focus was on Moreau.  I should have known.”

Tara put her hand on his shoulder, squeezing in reassurance.

“None of us are perfect.”

“Yeah, about that.  We are gonna have words after this is over.”

She frowned his way.  “I did not know about the bug.  Sure, they thought I’d tell them what was going on.  Not like I was gonna.”

“Still.”

“You don’t trust me.”

Eliot could tell that Tara was hurt by his accusation.  He thought he knew her, but now he just didn’t trust her.

“It’s not a matter of trust.  There are only four people I trust in this world.  Three of them are right here.  One I have to figure out how to rescue.  It’s taken a lot for me to actually trust them.  Stick around.  Maybe you could earn that trust.”

“Not likely.  I’m not a team player.”

“You seemed to do alright the last time.”

“It was fun.”

“There is something I need for you to do for me though, hopefully when this is over.”

“Ask away.”

“Later.  We should get ready to go. Three hours.”

Tara leaned over, kissed his cheek and smiled his way.  “For luck.  God knows we need it.”

Grabbing her, he pulled her in for a heart stopping kiss. “I don’t believe in luck.”

“Should have done that sooner, Spencer.”

 

“This should work,” Hardison declared as he and Eliot talked on the plane.

“How?  The fact that Tara and Sterling will be in the line of fire?  We need to figure out how Nate is planning to get in there.”

“Shoes.  He’s still wearing the same shoes.  Transmitter is still working, for now.”

“We have one hour before we land.  Two hour window at the most.”

Hardison sighed.  His phone pinged, but until his hands stopped flying over the keyboard he ignored it.

“Your phone?  Hardison, you’re supposed to turn the damn thing off.”

“Remember when I piggybacked the comms?”

“Yeah.”

Hardison held up his phone to Eliot. “Wifi.  That’s all.  It’s just email.”

“And here I thought you did something illegal,” Eliot snarked back.

“Sometimes it’s just using what you have.”

Hardison’s eyes went wide.  “Holy shit.  I know the plan.”

“What?” Eliot growled back.

Hardison grabbed his hand, handed him the phone, and then pumped his fist.

“How?  He’s a magician.  I swear.”

“Ok, we gotta plan.”

“We gotta plan, of the prison.”

Eliot always thought that Nate could work miracles.  How he managed to get ahold of a computer?  Probably had something to do with Quinn. 

“How is it this simple?  We just reverse the Jailhouse Job?”

“Of course, there will be more weapons involved.”

“Think it will work, Hardison?”

Hardison called up the plans that Nate had managed to send to him, with notations and everything.

“Has almost the same layout as the prison where Sterling sent Nate.  May have even had the same architect.  How did we get this lucky?”

Eliot and Hardison bumped fists.

 

“Has it been sent?” Nate mumbled to Quinn.

“Your Hardison should have received it by now.  They are on their way.”

Nate breathed a sigh of relief.  This could possibly be over sooner than later.  Steadily he made his way over to the table where the plans lay.  If there was one variable missing, this would not work.  They were lucky the last time that the plan worked, even though they had to move up the timetable because the Italian had warned the warden. 

“An hour out at the most.”

Nate could barely stand, but he’d have to complete this crazy job to get out of it.  Then what?  His team was burned, possibly damaged beyond repair.  How did he fix this?  Parker would never forget what was done to her, she’d never be able to relate to Hardison ever again.  Eliot would feel even guiltier that he didn’t help them. Sophie would maybe survive, but he doubted that their relationship could survive.

His shoulder ached.  What if he passed out during all this?  Then he couldn’t pull the trigger?  He just didn’t understand why Flores didn’t pull the trigger herself.  The last variable he had to figure out.

 

The prison did indeed look similar to the one where Sterling had Nate stashed after testifying against Kadjic almost two years before.  It wasn’t something that Sophie wanted to relive.  He was close, she could feel it.  If and when she encountered the Italian, she most certainly would let the woman know how she felt.  The fact that Nate became involved with something way over his head made Sophie want to kill the woman.

Both Sterling and Tara indicated that they were in and ready when Nate made his move.  Hardison couldn’t tap into any of the feeds, but with herself, Eliot and Hardison, they could hopefully figure out where Nate was and get him to safety. 

“Shoes are at the northwest corner, nearest the laundry.  If he crawls through the shaft to the left, then he and his so-called crew could get in with the security cameras down.  It’s just a matter of fooling the sensors, which we know he did the last time.  There has to be someone on the inside to help.  To be able to help with the heat sensors alone.”

“Harder to reverse unless there’s help,” Eliot pointed out.  “We’re on it.”

Only when Eliot arrived, the shoes were sitting on the ground.

“We’ve been blown.  She knows.  Where are they?  Any eyes?”

Sophie was frantic with worry.  How could they have been fooled by that woman? 

 

“Oh, what a tangled web you weave, Ford.  How long has it been?”

Nate had been fooled too.  He thought that the Italian was taking his advice, only she had just walked them through the front door.  The warden was her in, not Nate.  It was just to throw them all off.  She figured to have contingencies if he somehow was able to get help. 

“Not long enough, Moreau,” he panted out, shoulder aching.

“Look, Ford.  I don’t know what she’s told you.  I wouldn’t trust her if I were you.”

“Shut up, Moreau,” Maria yelled.  “You’ll pay for your transgressions.”

“Oh, yippee.”

Nate wanted to punch Moreau to shut him up, only he couldn’t even lift his arm to throw one.  Both Quinn and Dayal stood at attention, ready to do whatever Maria Flores wanted them to do.

“You knew,” Nate told Quinn as he stood with his gun ready.

“Yep.  Don’t worry, Ford.  I still want to get you out.  Not sure that’s her plan though, but I don’t know.”

There was noise off in the distance, but the Italian ignored the commotion.

“There’s the other prisoners attempting to escape.  Now, move.”

So she had sold the plans to others, to plan their own escapes.  If Moreau died under these kinds of conditions, then no one person could be pinpointed.  She’d get off scot free, Nate would take the fall and it would be over.

Propping Nate up, Dayal dragged him down the corridor after Flores and Moreau.  The boat they had set up at the rocky beach was ready to go.  Nate’s plan had crashed before it even began.

“You’re not taking him,” a voice from behind said.

Nate couldn’t sigh in relief.  It wasn’t Eliot, like he’d hoped. It wasn’t even Sophie, who probably had a handle on what was going on.

“Get out of our way.”

Moreau just smiled at Parker, like he knew exactly what had happened to her.

“Did you like Kristof?”

Parker fired at Moreau, winging him in the shoulder.

“Shut up.”

“Parker, put the gun down.”

Both Quinn and Dayal had raised their weapons too.  Knowing that Parker was outnumbered, Nate hoped to calm everyone down so she wouldn’t get hurt any more than she was.

“Quinn, she’s not the enemy.”

“Kill her.  We have Moreau.  Now,” Flores demanded.


End file.
